een Hand Gebonden Kunstenaarsboek '(The) Fairing(s)', the Artist's-Books Workshop,Vilnius 2009 a hand-bound Artist's-Book / le Livre d'Artist / ein handgebundenes Künstler Buch / Mahler Buch

1. A 'fairing' is a gift. More precisely: a 'fairing' is a present given at or brought from a fair. 2. A 'fairing' is a thin cake made of sugar and butter.

3. 'Fairing' is making the surface of an aeroplane smooth and streamlike. More generally it is used for the process of streamlining.

Things we do in the hands-on workshop:


(Antique gravure)

1. simple paper making.
Where the twain can meet.

It is important to notice that long before any civilization had heard of such a thing as paper the Chinese civilization could be defined as 'a paper culture'. The Chinese were the first to make paper, and paper found its uses in all social groups; in Islamic civilization first, and later in Europe paper never found such wide application as in China or indeed Japan. The 'Far East' had oiled capes for peasants, painted clothing as an extravaganza for the higher middle classes (both in China and during many a hundred years in Japan), or prayer flags for religious ceremonies, and kites for children. The consumption of paper away from China stayed limited to the literate classes and state's administration.

It is two things: making a sheet to write or print on, or
'making paper'.

In other words: the craft of making useful paper, or
the art of paper making.

On the internet you will find 'the world' on papermaking. Pages you should most certainly see as they show a fair bit more than just simple papermaking are to be found under:
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/middle/paper.htm
this address often (the internet is a funny thing) brings you to pages that you want not, there for you better look in google with the words: princeton papermaking (and find the pages with the same address)

A short while ago Nancy Knaap, the Dutch specialist in the restoration of paper and books, made a trip to Japan and made some short films on paper making in progress: Nancy Knaap films on Japanese paper making.
She was friendly enough to also give the following information:
In february 2010 a Japan-papermaking trip is organized by Megumi; grants (in fact all sorts of information on Japanese culture and papermaking - preservation, conservation and restauration) can be informed about / asked for at the Japan Foundation.
Plus the life-size connection: Japanese Living National Treasures.

Voor Nederlanders, 3 studenten van de CABK, ArtEZ academie voor beeldende kunsten Zwolle zijn uitgenodigd deze workshop te volgen, is er de Middelste Molen met cursussen, informatie en materiaal paketten.
There is no material that has not been used to write on (or scribble and cut in) at some stage, from wax-tablet to granite-block; and, indeed, any sort of material coming from / made with, or of plants.
In Europe 'good' sheets for documents and books were of 'vellum' (veel, or veal = calf),
or 'parchment' (Pergamum, the city in Asia Minor, = the place where the prepared skins of goats, and sheep were bought to serve for writing and binding.
Paper as we know it today has a long tradition. It is thought to be invented by Cai or Ts'ai Lun A.D. 105 (Han Dynasty, Emperor Han Ho Ti) from a mixture of water, rags, hemp and mulberry bark, dried in the sun, and it never changed much, considering. Longting Town, Cai Lun's domain, in Yanxian County (Shaanxi Province) has the 'Cai Lun Paper Culture Museum' celebraiting China's contribution to world civilization.
In fact sheets of paper, with decipherable words on them and dating back to 260BC - 8AD (Western Han Dynasty) have been found in 1974 in Gansu Province.
Starting in 932 and completing in 953 the block printing of the Books Yi, Shu, Shi, Zhou Li, Yi Li, Li Ji, (I'm sure we all heared of the Book of Change, well that is Yi) and the commentaries on the Spring And Autumn Annals, together with government-backed printing in great quantity of Confucian books, show something of large-scale publication made possible by printing on paper.
Paper has come to the west via the Arabs. The word 'paper' (papyrus = the plant material of the Egyptians, made into a flat and uniform sheet by peeling, slicing and pounding ever since some 5000 years ago) gave up its origins and donated its status to 'the new product' to show how profoundly the progress the 'new' Chinese paper changed 'Western society'
This 'modern' paper would open the way to printing as the West knows it since 'Gutenberg', developer of new ways of printing with 'movable type' earlier been craftfully deployed by Bi Sheng working with clay type certainly between 1041 1nd 1048. This has been described by She Kuo in the "Dream Stream Essays".

Hands On Now!

Find the material to make your paper with, and shred it to small pieces: any old paper would do. Just like eating: anything you put in makes or builds the quality of your body and what comes out.
Together with almost rotting pieces of cloth, and plant-material (and even small particals of material that you better put in later for special effects) make something of a smooth pulp in a kitchen blender.
A quarter of a liter shreds, loosely in a cup, soaked in a liter of warm water would make a fair folio size.
Much of the old paper has enough 'glue' in it for a strong blotting-paper; 2 small spoons of liquid starch per liter will make the sizing good for writing on. Glues, bleaches and all sorts of chemicals make 'your' paper.

The smooth pulp goes into a water filled tub that should be a bit larger than the screen you are going to dip in horizontally. The pulp must be spread evenly through the water; more pulp for thick paper and less pulp for thinner paper / though, as a matter of opinion, thicker or thinner paper has more to do with your way of 'dipping' than with more or less pulp in the solution.

The screen with pulp is taken out of the basin whilst shedding the last water off. The 'deckle' (the wooden rim put onto the up-side of your screen) is taken off, and the paper (you more or less 'see' it change from the watery pulp ito the sheet) is laid on cloth - felt, as it keeps shape best in these watery-ways.
Good pressing and air- or sun-drying does the rest.

Now that's roughly all!
An artist wanting to make a paper 'fit to ideas' (which I think is something to go for) will understand it might take a bit of experience to do so. A few years would do to begin with, I should think, but the nice bit is anyone can learn in a day to see how much future one has.

   

Back to Vilnius Days


INDEX