Hand Papermaking At Guild Hall

Being charged with the task of making an original piece of artwork can be intimidating.

But for those who want to express themselves with a visual creation, yet are not quite up to the daunting tasks of drawing or painting, the hand papermill organization Dieu Donné offers an alternative.

“If you say, ‘Just make a piece of paper,’ it’s not as scary,” said Dieu Donné founder and part-time Amagansett resident Sue Gosin during a telephone interview last week. “And then you say, ‘Here’s a stencil,’ and they’re suddenly making art. It’s kind of magical that way.”

On Saturday, November 12, the non-profit organization will bring its cotton-rag pulp, vats, molds, stencils and paints to Guild Hall in East Hampton for the first time ever to explain how hand papermaking, as a craft, shifted into an art form. The event will start with a lecture. A hands-on demonstration will follow, allowing each participant to walk away with their very own handmade paper.

“You’ll never look at paper the same way again,” said Guild Hall Chief Curator Christina Strassfield during a telephone interview last week.

Hand papermaking’s roots stretch back 2,000 years to ancient China, Ms. Gosin explained. Up until that point, communication was preserved on stone and sheepskin, she reported.

“If it had not been for the invention of paper, I think we’d still be back on cave walls,” she said. “The key was that it was being made from material in all of our backyards.”

Centuries later, the need for paper in America reached its highest demand and lowest supply just before the Industrial Revolution, according to Ms. Gosin. There wasn’t enough paper to go around, she said. It became against the law to destroy old cotton or linen rags, the essential ingredients in paper. They had to be recycled to go toward producing more paper, she said.

“It has this wonderful history to it that really is the history of our ability to preserve knowledge and pass it on,” Ms. Gosin said. “And it was really released from the commercial aspect to becoming an art form in the 20th century.”

At age 26—fresh out of graduate school at the University of Wisconsin—Ms. Gosin, a printmaker who fell in love with papermaking, packed up her Volkswagen bus and headed to Manhattan. The year was 1976, an exciting time for artists in New York, she said, adding that she started her own paper mill, Dieu Donné, in a fifth floor loft in SoHo.

Ms. Gosin said she wanted to show artists that they didn’t have to limit themselves to small and large rectangular paper in white and off-white—the commercial variety. She wanted them to see how the natural pulp in handmade paper could enhance their work.

And, if they were interested, she wanted to show artists how to make the paper themselves.

The process begins with cotton-rag pulp, which has the consistency of oatmeal or cottage cheese, and is made with hot water and macerated fiber.

“Pulp can be made from any plant fiber on the planet, but only some of it works really well,” Ms. Gosin explained. “It’s been centuries of trial and error.”

It’s placed into a vat, or shallow tub, and more water is added—usually twice the amount of the pulp. For finer paper, add more water. For thicker paper, add less, Ms. Gosin advised.

Mix the pulp and added water very well, she instructed.

“That’s called ‘hogging the slurry,’” she said with a laugh. “It’s a wonderful old term.”

Once the pulp is adequately “hogged,” dip a paper mold—which is a wooden frame with a screen stretched across it—into the mixture. Then, place another same-sized wooden frame, called a deckle, on top, which controls the shape of the sheet of paper.

At Guild Hall on Saturday, the Dieu Donné team will bring additional, unconventional deckles in various shapes, like a heart, for students to use as well, Ms. Gosin said.

“As you pull up on the mold from the vat, the fiber settles into the shape of the deckle,” she explained. “Extra water drains out through the screen. But you have to do the papermaker’s shake. Give it a little shake in both directions to make sure you have a nice, even sheet of paper. That way, you even out the grain.”

The result is a sheet of wet, evenly lined-up pulp on the screen. Gently flip it over onto a wooden board topped with woolen felt. The process is called “couching.”

From there, the student can apply collage materials, colored pulp and stencils, Ms. Gosin said. They can even draw on top of it, working wet on wet, she said. When satisfied with the composition, place another piece of woolen felt on top.

At the papermill, the paper is dried with a hydraulic press, which pushes about 90 percent of the water from the sheet. The paper’s thickness diminishes from about a half inch to no more than 1/32 of an inch. At the workshop, students will either hand-press their sheets or let them air dry.

Either way, hydrogen bonding will take place in the paper, producing a strong sheet once it’s dry, Ms. Gosin said, adding that this particular process of hand papermaking that she will teach at Guild Hall is one of many.

“Students will be learning the concept of what hand papermaking all about, and it’s delightful to show because showing is the best way of learning, and doing it yourself is even better,” she said.

Dieu Donné will hold a hand papermaking workshop on Saturday, November 12, at noon at Guild Hall in East Hampton. Wear clothing and shoes that can get wet. Tickets are $25, or $20 for members. For reservations, call 324-4050 or visit guildhall.org.