Adventures in Fungal Papermaking, 2020-21

May 28, 2021

Over the past few years, I’ve found myself obsessed with the idea of making paper out of fungi. Luckily, Tim Pfitzer at @herbincalabama and @magiccitymushrooms was kind enough to donate spores and mycelium for me to experiment with.

Fungi does not contain cellulose; its cell walls contain chitin, which also makes up exoskeletons of some arthropods (insects, crustaceans, etc). “Paper” that is made from 100% mushrooms has less integrity than cellulose-based paper but it has a felt-like, slightly spongy, and very interesting texture.

I first experimented with making mushroom paper from polypore mushrooms in January 2020 while I was working on my book Mycorrhizae. I had already made recycled paper that I “innoculated” with chanterelle mushroom spores, but I wanted to try making 100% mushroom “paper.” I soaked the polypores for 3 weeks, cooked briefly to kill critters, then cut them up and blended. I then pulled sheets with friends Josh & Nicole. The dry paper has such a cool, fabric-like feel to it!

Mushroom bags from Magic City Mushrooms. Score!

This summer, the mushroom + paper saga continues…. I picked up some already-fruited bags of blue oyster and reishi mycelium from Magic City Mushrooms in Birmingham. I picked off the white mycelium and composted the remaining sawdust substrate, trying to remove as much sawdust as possible (I will try to do better with this in the next batch, though). Then, I beat a pulp of 75% recycled paper and 25% mycelium and pulled sheets with poet/geographer Josh Dugat. Many thanks to the MFA Book Arts program at The University of Alabama for use of their Reina beater!

The final paper is very speckled/textured and a little spongy! Josh and I will be using this for the cover of a new collaborative book called Hy-phae/phen.

I am planning to try different mixtures and proportions to get the right texture and consistency for printmaking and writing, and I’ll try my hand at making polypore paper again if we get some good rain.

Dauphin Island ArtSeaLab Festival, October 25-27, 2018

March 07, 2019

Last fall, I had the honor of being asked to teach a community papermaking workshop at the ArtSeaLab Festival in Dauphin Island, Alabama! This was the first year of ArtSeaLab, a collaboration between the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and Art Does It!, a local arts non-profit.

I collaborated with Joshua Dugat and Nicole Gelb-Dugat on a community Ecolit workshop series, with the goal of creating an edition of 20 community-generated chapbooks over the course of two days.

We started with recycled papermaking on a rainy, blustery Thursday in late October. Before class, Josh, Nicole, and I ran out to the beach in the driving rain to collect seaweed, grasses, and other artifacts. We did our best to dry off before the participants — who came from as near as Dauphin Island and as far as Birmingham — arrived.

We started by blending up pre-soaked cotton paper to make a white pulp. I also taught them how to make a simple mould-and-deckle using a picture frame and screening material. Students took turns pulling and couching sheets, adding our beach-combed inclusions to form a beautiful, textured paper with delicate plant matter scattered throughout, to be used for the chapbook covers.

On the second day, the sun finally came out. Hundreds of monarch butterflies fluttered around in the bushes outside our classroom — a much-needed resting spot on their long migration south. And we needed the sun, too, because this was the day Nicole was teaching cyanotype printmaking! We started class by going outside and collecting materials, including butterfly wings, shells, plants, trash, etc. Nicole then taught us how to lay out our items on a sheet of paper painted with a light-sensitive chemical, then bring them outside to expose. This was my first time making cyanotype prints and I’m excited to try working this process into a future artist book!

Later that Friday, Josh led a generative poetry workshop. We brainstormed words, phrases, and ideas related to the Dauphin Island landscape, beginning with the prompt “What should be blue, but isn’t”? We were all truly amazed by how Josh’s expert guidance led us to write poems we were proud of in less than two hours.

We spent the night ironing still-wet paper, digitally printing the poems from 10 participants on the cyanotype sheets (we had laid them out so there was room for printing), then cutting the sheets down and collating them.

The next morning, everyone gathered to sew the books together. MFA students from The University of Alabama’s English department and friends from Tuscaloosa also joined us.

We presented our books and poetry at an evening event, with dozens of beautiful cyanotype prints floating above us. Afterwards, students from the English departments at UA and the University of South Alabama read their prose and poetry, followed by a reading by Alabama poet Kwoya Fagin Maples.

The extremes of rain and sun, fluttering monarch butterflies, lines of hanging cyanotypes covering the classroom, and wonderful company made for a truly enchanting weekend. For some pics of the final chapbook, click here!

Paper and Book Arts in Mexico

September 07, 2018

A version of this article first appeared on the University of Alabama's Capstone International Center and Graduate School websites.

As an artist, anthropologist, and book lover, I have long been fascinated by Mexico’s paper and bookmaking traditions. So when I began the University of Alabama’s Book Arts MFA program last year, I jumped at the opportunity to learn more through a summer research trip to Mexico.

From as early as 800 AD, the Maya, Mexica, and Mixtec peoples had created beautiful screenfold books containing hand-painted text and images. Almost all of these books were destroyed by the Spanish. But today, some artists in Mexico are working to revitalize and modernize their country’s paper and book traditions. Among them are the workshops Taller Leñateros in the city of San Cristobal de las Casas, Taller Santos Rojas in the town of San Pablito, and Taller Papel Oaxaca in San Agustin Etla.

I visited Taller Leñateros in the state of Chiapas in late May 2018. The taller was started in 1975 by the poet Ambar Past with the goal of reviving the Maya art of bookmaking. Today, it employs local artists to make eco-friendly recycled paper and print and bind original artists’ books containing Maya songs, poetry, and stories in multiple languages. I did an intercambio, or knowledge exchange, with the four artists at Taller Leñateros. After I gave them bookbinding lessons, they taught me how to make paper from maguey fiber — the same plant used to produce tequila and mezcal. Before I left, I filled my suitcase with many beautiful (and heavy!) books, paper, and prints.

In early June 2018, I embarked on the second leg of my trip to learn about amate, a prehispanic type of bark paper. Families of papermakers in San Pablito, Puebla have been continuously making amate since before the arrival of Cortes in 1519, first for books commissioned by the Aztecs and later for religious rituals. Contemporary amate makers are experimenting with different types of bark and are creating modern designs for everything from wall hangings to lampshades.

I took a workshop with Juan and Jorge of the Santos Rojas family, who taught me the entire process of making amate. First, we tromped in the woods to harvest mulberry and jonote bark, then headed back to the taller to cook the fibers over a small fire. The next day, I learned how to use a volcanic rock to pound the delicate fibers into thin sheets. The pounding process resulted in a lovely marble-textured paper that I incorporated into my most recent artist book, Tribute.

Sheets of amate drying on the roof of Taller Santos Rojas

My last stop was Oaxaca. Oaxaca has a rich tradition of printmaking, along with a lesser-known papermaking tradition that has sprung up around it. In the city, I briefly stopped by the Instituto de Artes Graficas Oaxaca, which houses an art library and a small press that produces risograph and digitally printed artist books (they are also beginning to experiment with letterpress). I then went to San Agustin Etla, a small town north of the city, home to the beautiful Centro de las Artes and several small papermaking studios originally sponsored by local artist-legend Francisco Toledo.

While in San Agustin Etla, I took a papermaking course with Alberto Valenzuela of Taller Papel Oaxaca. Although he began his career making cotton paper for printmakers, his own studio is dedicated to paper that connects more deeply to the land he loves. Valenzuela is a true maestro of Oaxacan papermaking, having experimented with over 30 different native plants, including the native Oaxacan brown cotton, coyuchi. We picked through a large bin of partially-fermented maguey, the by-product of a nearby mezcaleria, or mezcal distillery. After cooking the maguey over an outdoor clay oven, we put it in a hollander beater with pre-beaten cotton and pulled sheets western-style. The result was a lovely text-weight sheet with visible maguey fibers.

When I came back to Alabama in late June, I was struck by how we lead our lives almost entirely indoors — from house, to car, to work, to studio, and back again. In Mexico, I spent almost all of my days outdoors. People were always walking and working outside, exposed to the elements; and despite having limited resources and studio space, the artists I met were able to create high-quality, interesting books and paper. I was sad to leave, but I am also energized to spend more time outdoors here in Alabama, especially experimenting with making paper from local plants!