The days are getting longer. Exquisite scents of growing plants fill the air. The pollen makes me cry, but it’s all worth it! Today I’d like to introduce you to an easy to grow garden plant for making strong, flexible paper. Cardoon is a perennial culinary plant in the artichoke family, with stalks harvestable early spring through mid summer. When harvesting, you could cut a few stalks from each plant, as is the common ethical way to harvest plants in the wild, but if you are fortunate to have your own garden, just so you know, if you cut back a whole cluster of stems, new shoots will continue to grow. I used to grow Cardoon for eating, and it is very tasty seasoned with garlic and salt and tossed with pasts. But I’m a lazy cook and found it was so much work removing the fibers to prepare it for food, that now it’s become a favorite for papermaking….just because of those troublesome fibers. Hummm…just thinking of other plants with similar characteristics, like Rhubarb. Another experiment?
The Cardoon papers will cockle a small amount if I don’t restrain them while drying. Sometimes, in the slurry mix before I mold this paper I will add an internal sizing, alkyl ketene dimer (AKD), which will make the paper less absorbent and more adaptable for writing or painting. This can be ordered from Carriage House Paper in NYC. https://pdfs.carriagehousepaper.com/CarriageHousePaper-Sizing.pdf
Our overwintered Kale plants have been incredibly productive all spring giving us lots of good food, but the plants are becoming less tender with the lengthening of the days. I harvested mostly the fibrous stalks of the leaves for this batch of paper. I cooked them only for 1 hour, and because I didn’t use any additives to break down the fibers, I used the broth for soup after straining out the fiber. I must add that I have a separate pan and strainer that I use only for papermaking that I never bring into the kitchen. But since I was using a known food as my fiber material, I cooked the Kale in the kitchen with food-safe equipment.
I really love the translucent quality of the Kale paper. I just worked with the Kale slurry without adding anything except some Okra slime to see if that helped disperse the fibers better. It did. I ran out of time, so after staining the slurry I have left, I made little balls of pulp which I am drying out.
After these ball dry out completely, I can pack them away until I’m ready to rehydrate them and mix them with water in a vat for more Porch Papermaking.
After pressing the papers, during the drying process, some of the pulp stuck to the couching cloths/felts. This wasn’t cool, so it makes me want to try Kale paper again, but to alter the slurry recipe by adding a small amount of another fiber, like cardoon, abaca, cotton, or recycled paper, just to see if the pulp mix can be easier to work with when forming the sheets. I wonder if this would lead to a stronger and more versatile paper? I also notice that after a week the color which started out bright green is now a more subdued dark green. Oxidation! I’ll go that!
I’d like to give a shout out for May Babcock (Paperslurry) who offers detailed how-to video demonstrations with explanations in an online workshop for papermakers. Last Spring I enjoyed her workshop: The Ultimate Papermaking School For Artists. She pushed me to try more experiments with some additives and colors. She’s very ethically minded, avoids strong chemicals, and she makes wonderful art with her handmade papers. This Spring she is offering another online workshop: Papermaking With Plants, which I am also enjoying. (I’ve been motivated to keep learning this year!) I’ve learned that a well filmed online, self-paced way of learning works well for me due to my busy schedule with Nature and Life.
What’s wonderful, is that prolific papermaking teaching/artists like Helen Hiebert (https://helenhiebertstudio.com) and May Babcock (https://www.maybabcock.com) share vasts amounts of experience and knowledge, freely and generously, through their blogs and websites. So if you aren’t in a place right now with extra money to invest in your own learning, there is so much available to learn from reading about what other amazing teaching/artists like Helen Hiebert and May Babcock are doing. Quite inspiring!
Smell the roses and thanks for listening!
