In Auvergne, the region where I was born, there is a chain of mountains called the Monts du Forez where many rivers run. As early as the middle of the fifteenth century right until the end of the nineteenth it was a renowned center for western hand papermaking.1 Today, only one papermill remains, called Moulin Richard de Bas.
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In Auvergne, the region where I was born, there is a chain of mountains called the Monts du Forez where many rivers run. As early as the middle of the fifteenth century right until the end of the nineteenth it was a renowned center for western hand papermaking.1 Today, only one papermill remains, called Moulin Richard de Bas. The papermill is quite isolated; you have to take a winding road through the hollows of the mountains to get there. The road passes through forests of fir and fern, piercing the density of the woods to find clearings of pasture, and then the village. I had not been there in many years but during a recent visit, I recognized the papermaker who had impressed me as a little boy. His face was the same, and his large hands were studded with fibers. Now, as the father of young Marius, I reminisce about the child I was then, always with a book in my hands. I also think of my mother’s generosity and my father’s humanism, which I believe are two important elements that prepared me for the process of papermaking.
As a young adult, I developed a particular attachment to the seaside .I walked the coastal path leading to Ti Louzou beach. These walks were good for laughter with the people I love, other times for meditation and introspection. I would contemplate the dark blue color of the water, waves crashing against the rocks, and the words of Marguerite Duras, from Un barrage contre le pacifique and L’Été 80, superimposed on it. Japan was indirectly present through Natsume Sōseki poems and novels with which I found a spiritual acquaintance. In Sōseki’s novel-haiku Kusamakura (Grass Pillow), philosophical reflections, observations of nature, and mundane life intertwine, each aspect responding to the other in a play of mirrors. I realize that while it was the rough paper of the Auvergne region that I first discovered, it was Japanese paper that later fascinated me for its delicacy and apparent fragility. Both papers respond to each other, much like the facets of Sōseki’s texts.
Six years ago, I organized a workshop as part of a course on paper recycling. I made rudimentary screens from photo frames and mosquito nets while the students prepared pulp with soap in an aerated tank to extract ink from the fibers. A thick, pristine white sheet emerged from the process. This marked my first step into the world of papermaking. But, it wasn’t until two years later, in the summer of 2020, that an unexpected encounter took place that was, in retrospect, the trigger for my investment in the art of papermaking. Walking into a Montreal shop, called Au Papier Japonais, with my wife, I was attracted by a book on a shelf, Japanese Papermaking by Timothy Barrett.2 I flipped through a few pages, and something clicked inside me: “Maybe I could make my own paper.” The photos in the book showcasing water waves on the sugeta—the Japanese mould utilized in hand papermaking—were impressive. A few months later, I sent one of my first sheets to Timothy inside an envelope made with Moulin Richard de Bas paper. A long correspondence began with a humble, passionate, and inspiring person, always available to answer my questions about technical aspects of sugeta-making. The book is always by my side during days dedicated to papermaking and this encounter has since led me to meet other papermakers. At a workshop the following winter, I met Viviane Fontaine, an artist whose work upholds traditional Japanese papermaking techniques.3 Her studio opens directly on the Hochmatt mountain. Covered in snow, it dominates the Switzerland landscape. As I walked through the valley, I listened to the silence near the Valsainte monastery, the stream runoff and humidity on the stones, the crackling of the high pines. The links between the nature surrounding the studio and Viviane’s art became apparent.
Returning from these encounters, I find myself in my studio, making paper or weaving a su. The su is a flexible and delicate screen inserted into the keta, the outer frame, in which both elements are utilized in forming the sugeta. It is a great pleasure to make the tools with which I make a sheet. What shape will it take? A formal rectangle, or a circle? A flat surface or even perhaps a little curved, like a lake resting on the rock? Will I choose a large diameter of splints so that the paper reveals the lines of the su, like snow settling in tree bark crevices?
Weaving a su is a way for me to be in the present moment, when today everything pushes us towards the urgency of the future. Splints are added one after the other with bobbins in a back-and-forth motion. It is a very long process, tiring because of the attention I must pay to both my hands and mind that sometimes wants to take me elsewhere. I work slowly, by choice, and by necessity because the elements I weave are delicate. I first used carbon fiber or bamboo splints from Vietnam.4 I now use Calamagrostis or Miscanthus grasses, harvested during autumn in urban areas of Montreal. The thread I used to weave the screen was nylon; now I interweave horsehair from two Auvergne horses. I like to think that these two horses are intertwined with each other in the sugeta. The frame is made of pine wood I shape with a Japanese saw and wood chisels. The wood pieces are connected by gooseneck mortise and tenon. I completely integrate sugeta-making with papermaking. In my opinion, they are inseparable.
I make paper that is closely related to the place where I live. It is something I developed through the horticulturist lens that my wife Scarlett has on nature. I harvest common milkweed stems and American elm branches during autumn in urban wastelands. Milkweed is an invasive plant because of its rhizomes, yet it has many virtues. The American elm was decimated during the twentieth century, but some isolated trees can still be found in Quebec province. Both are native to North America and the artist Winifred Lutz had already used them to make Japanese paper.5 The nagashizuki sheet-forming technique, specific to Japanese paper, involves adding formation aid to the vat. I collect tororo-aoi roots in our community garden planted from seeds sent by Timothy, and Nicholas Cladis from the University of Iowa Center for theBook. I also experiment with the viscous extract of the bark of Siberian elm, a very common tree in Montreal.
Starting with milkweed plants, I transform them, each step containing the entire process, each step gradually revealing the sheet to come. After steaming the stems, I remove the outer layer bark on a plank with a knife. It reminds me of peeling green beans with my grandmother. The inner bark is supple, a little transparent, with a marine smell. As it dries in the sun, it whitens and contracts. The next day, I filter the ash solution made from an ash tree and use it to cook the bark. It leaves a viscous appearance on my fingers. After rinsing, I observe the movement of the fibers that dance in the water during the chiritori stage of removing by hand small dark fibers and debris.
Beating the fiber with a wooden mallet is Scarlett’s “favorite” step. “Tac tac tac tac.” If it is music to me, it is certainly more like noise to her ears! It was said that the Moulin Richard de Bas hammers could be heard throughout the entire Laga valley. Each stage has its own rhythm, and this one is more lively, primal even. At first, I pounded for hours, hoping that all the fibers would separate from each other. Now, I let the fiber become what it needs to become; my grip is softer and I stop beating when it seems time to do so. My favorite step is making the sheet of paper, being with the screen in the vat. Everything is slower because water is cold and viscous. I love hearing the water drops falling from the screen, the sound of the waves rolling back and forth on the su, or the clacking of the keta wood and latches as I open it. There is something of a dance in the movement of the body at this stage. Making the sheet is a space of freedom; by moving the fibers back and forth, I can settle them differently on the su. The next step involves placing stones on top of the stack of paper. Their shapes evoke memories of Chu Ta’s paintings, executed in a single stroke.6 Subsequently, the sheets are dried on wooden boards. Then I compose the elm-and-milkweed sheets I made, tearing the paper, wetting it, giving it a shape, and gluing the pieces together.
One day, as I rinsed the tororo-aoi roots to remove soil particles, I realized that it was impossible to remove them all, and inevitably some would make their way in the sheet of paper. I had the same reflection when I saw residues of milkweed bark, fiber clusters, and folds in the sheet. This experience underscored the notion that the paper intricately preserves these events within the intertwining of its fibers. Despite the physical distance that separates me from places and people I love, weaving a su and making paper, are a way for me to connect with both the living and the dead, and with places that are distant but constantly changing shape, like time curling up on itself to remain nothing more than a mass of changing matter, like a glove turned inside out. Similar to a map, paper materializes the encounters that led me to this art form, the places I have traveled to or dreamed of or, very simply, everything that has passed and still passes through me.
The author wishes to thank Marie-Christine Boyer and Rosanna Bruneau for their suggestions, Scarlett for her many readings, and Christian Bouchard for his interview.
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notes
1. Michel Boy and Jean-Louis Boithias, Moulins, papiers et papetiers d’Auvergne (Champétières, France: Éditions des Monts d’Auvergne, 2014), 605.
2. Timothy Barrett, Japanese Papermaking: Traditions, Tools, and Techniques (Warren, Connecticut: Floating World Editions, 2005), 317.
