Papermaking was pursued by others using recycled pulp. A few people had stampers built and Hollander beaters made. Any papermaking literature was avidly consumed and much experimentation was carried out, often with local plant fibers. Individuals made overseas trips to learn what they could about papermaking.
All of these activities tended to be carried out in isolation and it was not until the International Papermaking Conference in Kyoto in 1983 that many Australaian papermakers met each other for the first time. After this initial contact, an informal gathering of people who had been to the Kyoto Conference, other papermakers, and people generally interested in paper was held in Melbourne in 1984. At this meeting Papermakers of Australia was founded and its newsletter, Words of Paper, was born. Vast geographical distances make regular meetings of the organization difficult, so this newsletter, edited by Penny Carey-Wells, (2) is the vital link between papermakers scattered across the continent.
Though the printed word maintains contact, the general feeling at another informal meeting of Papermakers of Australia in Sydney, early in 1986, was that we needed the sharing, the stimulation, and the involvement of a conference. Hobart, with its Paper Mill, was the logical choice for a venue, especially as Penny Carey-Wells was prepared to coordinate such an event.
The Centre for the Arts is the new home of the Tasmanian School of Art, though in one sense 'new' is a misnomer for this wonderful old building on the docks. It was once a jam factory and its conversion to an art school has been accomplished without loss of any spaciousness or character. It made an excellent location for the conference. The School's Librarian had gone to considerable trouble to provide a display of books and articles about paper, including the Takeo Handmade Paper Collection and a second edition copy of one of Dard Hunter's important works. The library also possesses two video tapes from the International Paper Conference in Kyoto in 1983 purchased as a record of that event. These were available for delegates to view on the morning of the conference. In addition to the library the Centre for the Arts was an appropriate site because of the Paper Mill, a large lecture hall, many demonstration spaces, and an on-site gallery.
Two exhibitions had been arranged to coincide with the conference: "Paper Plus - Artist's Books and Designer Bookbindings" and "Paper Present". It was interesting to see this large body of paperworks displayed together.
"Paper Plus" was curated by Anne Virgo for the Crafts Council of the Australian Capital Territory as a touring exhibition, opening at the Paper Conference. It presented 28 selected works from 14 artists throughout Australia. Some of the works were in the fine designer bookbinding tradition, but all of these used paper as a major design element, rather than leather. Among the artist's books, some contained paper as a carrier for prints, text, or drawings, while other artists made the paper itself the main aspect of communication and expression. After being in Hobart, "Paper Plus" has travelled to Launceston, Melbourne, Canberra, Penrith, and Mildura.
For "Paper Present", invited artists were asked to consider the theme of "present" in some aspect of its meaning: being, existing, now; to hand in, send, hold out, give; to show, exhibit, offer, or endow. It was curated for Papermakers of Australia by Jenny Toynbee-Wilson, one of Australia's paper pioneers, and comprised work from Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the USA, and Canada. Sixteen Canadian artists were represented in a special section of the Gallery. This part of the exhibition was curated by Alayn Ouellet of Quebec, who was able to come to Hobart to hang the work and attend the conference. "Paper Present" has been shown in Launceston, Melbourne, and Burnie, after its opening at the Conference. It has received additional funding from the Crafts Board of the Australian Council to tour to many capital cities and regional galleries during 1988. A slide kit has also been produced of this show. (3)
Not far from the Centre for the Arts, one of its recent graduates, Andrea Faith Potter, showed an installation of paper artworks at the Chameleon Gallery. Called "Ballgowns & Wallflowers", the brightly colored paper and fabric garments assumed a vivacious anthropomorphic presence.
The timetable for the conference was largely divided between lectures and demonstrations, participants having expressed their preferences before arrival. Most demonstrators gave two formal sessions plus a further open one on the last full day, allowing people to see as much as possible. (The exception to this format was Tim Barrett, who generously displayed Japanese papermaking five times throughout the weekend. He also conducted a post-conference two-day workshop on the subject.) In addition to the wealth of lectures and demonstrations, two keynote speeches provided enough information and inspiration to store up for many months and to digest at leisure. Tim Barrett from the U.S. and Fred Siegenthaler from Switzerland were the speakers.
Tim, from the University of Iowa's School of Art and Art History is well known through his book on Japanese Papermaking. (4) He is one of those rare people, who, having obtained a deep knowledge of a subject, is then willing and capable of sharing it with lucidity. His studies have recently broadened from a focus on Japanese papermaking to include an interest in rag papers produced in Europe between 1400 and 1750. His research into why these are of much higher quality than papers produced after this time and his correlations to the quality bast fiber papers of Japan led him to emphasize that such paper is only produced from the best available raw materials, sensitively prepared by long, natural processes in harmony with such materials.
Tim's excellent slides of Japanese papermaking and the University of Iowa papermaking facility were enhanced by a display of Japanese papers and tools. A very delightful gesture made by Tim was to give every delegate a little packet of seeds of the Hibiscus manihot, the plant from the roots of which tororo aoi is derived.
Fred Siegenthaler is by profession a paper engineer, by inclination a global paper enthusiast, papermaker, and paper artist. He is the treasurer and founder of the International Association of Hand Papermakers and Paper Artists. Coinciding with the foundation of this organization, the Leopold-Hoesch Museum in Duren, West Germany held its 1st Biennial of Paper Art last year. Fred showed slides from this exhibition, illustrating the diversity of contemporary papermakers from around the world. He also showed a film made by his company, Sandoz, on papermaking in Taiwan. The papermakers there employ a blend of traditional and modern techniques to make their bast-fiber papers. Beating is no longer done by hand but in a Hollander beater, and very large sheets of paper are poured onto a screen and dried with the aid of a vacuum table. Fred also had on display examples from his limited edition book "Strange Papers", which contains two hundred handmade papers from around the world, including Australia.
Other lectures and demonstrations covered a broad range of papermaking and paper-related topics from the practical to the cerebral.
Rod Ewins, a lecturer at the Tasmanian School of Art, grew up in Fiji and has had a long-term interest in their beaten bark cloth. He gave a fascinating lecture on the methods of producing tapa and discussed the very plausible hypothesis that paper grew from a thriving bark-cloth culture in Ancient China. The theory is one which Chinese ethnologists have pursued for a number of years. At least one of these scholars, Sun-Shing Ling, has published his findings in English. Rod referred to Mr. Ling's comparison of bark-cloth beaters with oriental papermakers. He was able to graphically illustrate their similarity with slides from his own extensive research into bark cloth. He also pointed out how each material, bark-cloth or paper, used the bast fiber from the paper mulberry, Broussonetia papyrifera. Rod drew a parallel between the cermonial significance of paper in Eastern cultures and that of bark-cloth amongst Austronesian peoples.
Maggie Carey, from South Australia, talked about moving from small beginnings in the kitchen, with shredded waste paper, to the establishment of her present Meadow Mill. She expressed appreciation for people who had helped her learn about papermaking and showed slides from a recent tour to Mexico and the U.S.A., which was assisted by a grant from the Crafts Board. The slides from this trip included a selection taken at the Dard Hunter Paper Museum.
Two speakers who showed slides and discussed paper as an art medium were Jacki Parry, an expatriate Aussie now running The Paper Workshop (Gallowgate Studios in Glasgow), and Judy Silver, once a New Yorker, now a Sydney artist and art critic. Jacki's slides of the papermaking scene in the U.K. were very interesting because they presented not only her own very innovative paperworks and those of well known artists like David Hockney, but also the work of artists not so familiar in this country, such as sculptor David Mach. His huge assemblages of magazines and remaindered books, combined with furniture in architectural settings, gave yet another slant to the diverse use of paper. This diversity was reinforced by Judy Silver's lecture. She showed slides from recent exhibitions in New York and Washington, as well as from Australian artists, to illuminate paper used as image, relief, 3-D sculpture, and environmental work.
A number of sculptors talked about their unique approaches to using paper pulp as a medium. Kathleen Rowley, from Hawaii, showed slides and a video about her recent work, a very large paper installation, "Tower Vision". Her use of a cement sprayer to blow abaca pulp onto a screen to form very big sheets of paper was fascinating.(5) Another sculptor who uses paper as her medium, Ruth Faeber, concentrated on paper casting and hand-forming bas-relief works. Gaynor Cardew presented "Gaynor's Deviant Body Casting Show" in full technicolour. Gaynor is a cartoonist as well as a papermaker and sculptor, and she used her own experiences casting the human form to show both successes and pitfalls, in a presentation that blended entertainment and information.
Helen Waddlington, from Canberra, and Michael Lester, from Melbourne, professional bookbinders, talked about contemporary bookbinding, with a special look at how paper is used. They also gave demonstrations of simple bookbinding techniques and decorative paper surfacing. Another artist using decorative techniques, Margo Snape, demonstrated marbling techniques, including traditional and rock patterns and Turkish and European combed patterns.
Drawing on her wide experience in teaching, Sherry Cook demonstrated using handmade paper in art education, with a classroom approach. Ray Lefroy, another teacher, showed his own idiosyncratic papermaking techniques and discussed how public awareness of papermaking as an art form may be raised. He also demonstrated his method of teaching and using papermaking in the classroom. A number of participants presented views of papermaking from an individual perspective. Kathy Nix entitled her demonstration "Harvesting Images: Discipline, Discovery & Dreams" and looked at using plant fiber papermaking as a medium for personal expression, but growing from a solid craft base. Jenny Toynbee-Wilson looked back over ten papermaking years and the elements which had influenced her work. Her professional slide presentation showed how the Australian landscape and her awareness of the need for ecological balance had inspired her powerful imagery.
Charles Turner drew on a professional lifetime working as a chemist in the paper industry. He is the recipient of a grant from the Tasmanian Arts Advisory Board to apply this wealth of knowledge to the pulping and bleaching of fibers suitable for hand papermaking. Charles has had slides made of a variety of fibers under the microscope, to explain the effects of different bleaching and beating techniques. He also explained the mechanics of hydrogen bonding and outlined the steps necessary to delignify fiber before bleaching, to obtain a better result. In fact, he provided an invaluable technical perspective to the papermaking process. Another technical presentation was made by Inga Hunter, who demonstrated two paper coloring methods: dyeing pulp with fiber reactive dyes and dyeing sheets of already-made paper with naphthols.
The final morning of the Conference was given to a forum discussion. Among the issues raised were ideas for further gatherings, the need to strengthen the network of people interested in paper, and ways to lobby existing organizations like Craft Councils to run specific papermaking workshops. The difficulty of obtaining equipment and materials and determining how a supply network could be initiated were topics of deep general concern. Several states decided to form their own support groups within Papermakers of Australia.
The wide use of indigenous plant fibers was something which Tim Barrett commented on in the final session, saying he has been impressed by the number of people, observed displaying sample books to each other, who were using such fibers. He also spoke of our good fortune in having people like Charles Turner, who had come to hand papermaking with both a wide technical knowledge and the desire to share it.
Indeed, the sharing of knowledge, ideas, and enthusiasm was what the conference was all about, and it succeeded -- both on the formal and the informal level.
NOTES: 1) We gratefully acknowledge assistance to hold the 1st Austalian Paper Conference from the Crafts Board of the Australia Council, the Minister for the Arts through the Tasmanian Arts Advisory Board, Sandoz Australia Pty Ltd. 2) To subscribe, write to: Penny Carey-Wells / The Paper Mill / University of Tasmania / P.O. Box 252C / GPO Hobart, Tasmania 7001 / Australia. Subscriptions are $A10 (Australian dollars) per year. 3) Information on the slide kit is available from the Crafts Council of Australia / 100 George St. / Sydney, NSW 2000 / Australia. 4) Barrett, Tim. Japanese Papermaking: Traditions, Tools, and Techniques. Weatherhill, Tokyo, 1983. 5) See Kathleen Rowley's article on Tower Vision in this issue. Editor.
