HANDMADE PAPERMAKING…honouring the environment

Making paper is my passion and I am delighted that in my small way I can honour the environment while indulging this passion.

The art of making handmade paper has a very long history. Every culture has their own rituals for creating their paper using environmental resources. Here on Grand Bahama we too have developed our ritual using the beautiful vegetation on our island all year round. My creative energies are stirred when I experiment with that which may be considered discards from the environment, seaweed washed on the shore, clippings from the garden hedge or leaves and flowers on the ground.

REUSING nature resources not only provides easy access to unlimited materials but also provides many variations when creating the paper that becomes my canvas and my painting medium.

The process I follow to make my paper is much the same as that of the Chinese who first made paper in 104 BC. The paper and plant material is collected, shredded, cooked, strained, washed, blended into pulp and poured into a large vat of water. The pulp is collected on a screen frame, drained and reversed onto large boards that are placed in the sun to dry. When dry this beautiful sheet of paper becomes my canvas ready for “Artistry in Handmade Paper”. These “pieces of paper” are indeed “fragments of life” that become very versatile art forms.