with much assistance from Johannes Follmer of the Museum Papiermühle Homburg (a historic papermill museum located in Homburg/Main, Germany). In our first attempts, Follmer made the paper for my project with wild nettles. However the stems of wild nettles only contain five percent bast fiber. To improve the yield, we obtained bunches of great nettle or European stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) from the Institute of Applied Botany at the University of Hamburg. The great nettle, which can grow over nine feet tall, has a fiber content of seventeen percent. The taller the nettle, the stronger the fiber. The fiber length is between 2.4 to 8.3 inches long and very tear-resistant. Nettle plants grow nearly all over the world from the Himalayas to Finland. Fabric woven from nettle fiber has been found in burial sites dating back to the Bronze Age. Nettles were also used for sails and ropes. In the eighteenth century, when there was a shortage of cotton and linen rags for papermaking, Jacob Christian Schaeffer published six volumes about paper production with all sorts of plants, among them nettles. In the early twentieth century Britain controlled ninety percent of the world cotton supply. In the early twentieth century Austria–Hungary and Germany were keen to develop alternatives. Professor Dr. Gustav Bredemann at Hamburg University developed high-fiber-yielding nettle clones in 1919 and continued doing so for decades. But, alas, the nettle's big moment was ruined by the advent of cheap synthetics. Tales of Nettles barbara beisinghoff Barbara Beisinghoff, Nettle and Waterpower, a water jet drawing performance on kozo paper in the Homburg/Main paper mill. All photos courtesy of the author. on facing page: Barbara Beisinghoff, The Wild Swans, 2001, 15 x 10.6 inches, artist book of the stinging nettles fairy tale, 10 watermarked papers with water jet drawing, watercolor, etching, letterpress, and a nettle paper shirt, housed in a box. 38 - hand papermaking In 1990 the nettle plant was rediscovered by the Institute of Applied Botany at the University of Hamburg. In 1999, with EU backing, farmers were encouraged to grow nettles. Companies in Germany, Austria, and Italy started to develop nettles commercially, using Bredemann's high-fiber nettles. Unlike cotton, nettles grow easily without pesticides. There is no crop in the first year but afterwards the plants can be harvested for ten to fifteen years without planting new saplings. The yield in the second year is between 1.5 and 2.5 metric tons per hectare (1,338 to 2,231 pounds per acre). By the third and fourth year the harvest can amount to 4 metric tons or 4,000 kilos per hectare (3,570 pounds per acre). It takes about 40 kilos (88 pounds) to provide enough material for one shirt, so a hectare of nettles could in its third year of production provide fiber for 100 shirts, as well as a great quantity of by-products, including sugar, starch, protein, ethyl alcohol, and nettle leaves which can be eaten as a vegetable in fancy restaurants or brewed as a tea. Nettles represent a much more environmentally friendly fiber crop compared to cotton which requires more irrigation and agrochemical inputs. The plant has been targeted as a promising candidate for sustainable production of natural fiber. The Thuringian Institute of Textile and Plastic Research, located in Rudolstadt, Germany, explores renewable resources for industrial purposes. They sent us enough mechanically broken nettle fiber for my artist book project. To make the paper Johannes Follmer cooked the fiber in a soda ash solution, rinsed it, and beat it for four hours. He pulled the nettle paper for the "Feather Suit" and "Shirt" components of the book using a laid mould. The paper is thin, silky, and strong. In another project using handmade paper, I performed "Nettle and Waterpower" in the Homburg/Main paper mill in which I made drawings on kozo paper with a waterjet. Papermaking, book arts, and etching are the most arduous and labor-intensive processes in my work. Recently I produced my artist book The Angel is my Watermark at the Women's Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York. While there another artist asked me if I like complicated processes when she saw me pulling 900 thin papers from linen and flax. I owe her an answer. Isn't this tale of nettles an allegory for persistence and spirit? Forming green paper (90.6 x 31.5 inches), in the creek at the historic paper mill Homburg/Main with Johannes Follmer. Author at right. Wings of the Paper Machine, a "grotto vision" installation of creek paper (90.6 x 31.5 inches) in the historic paper mill Homburg/Main, 2001.
