By: Kiana Tahiri
The earliest found fragments of paper date back to China in the second century BC. It is believed that a man by the name of Ts’ai Lun collected bark from a mulberry tree, pounded the fibers and created a sheet of paper out of its pulp. Later, the quality of paper was improved with fibers such as cotton, hemp, and old fish nets. Paper soon spread to the rest of the world with the help of the silk road. During this time, people only transcribed on silk or bamboo however, this was very expensive and unpractical. Bamboo would take up so much room on the silk road and silk was very expensive and only a few could afford it. Paper became the perfect substitute and quickly spread with the help of the silk road.
More fibers were used to make paper and it had spread to Korea. In the 6th century, Koreans made paper out of mulberry, bamboo, rice straw, seaweed, and rattan. After this, paper making was soon introduced to Japan by a Korean monk. Other fibers that were used to make early paper included hemp, linen, and cotton.
Currently, paper can be made from a plethora of plants and the natural fibers. In order to make paper from plants, the first step is to harvest the plant materials and cut them into ½ inch to one inch pieces. Next, they need to be cooked down with an alkaline substance such as soda ash and water. This dissolves any unwanted starches and sugars. Often times, it will also turn the concoction into a black paste. It is recommended to use a 2:5 ratio when cooking soda ash and plant materials. Bring this concoction to a boil and then simmer for up to two hours. The plant material will be ready when it separates along the grain. Next, the water from the pulp will need to be strained. Cheesecloth bags work perfectly for this. Sometimes, pulp will need to be rinsed out a few times with water in order to get all of the dirty residue out. After this, the pulp must be blended with hot water in order to separate and smooth out the fibers. Fill up a blender ¾ of the way up and add the ball of pulp. Finally, the last step to finish the plant based pulp is to add a thickening agent such as formation aid. Formation aid makes pulp thicker and makes it adhere to the water. This will also preserve the plant pulp so that it will not go bad. After this, the pulp is finished and ready for making sheets of paper!
In conclusion, paper making is a sacred art. Through paper, so much history has been transcribed and kept through the ages. Paper was made more available through the silk road and was used more than silk because of it’s inexpensive materials. I am happy that there are still people making paper and practicing this ancient process.
"Hand Papermaking with Plants (Illustrated Infographic)." Paperslurry. N.p., 04 Aug. 2015. Web. 12 Apr. 2017.
Paper production is one of the four incredible developments of the immense creations of China and Xuan paper is one of the four fortunes of study, which happen to be the composition brush, ink stick, ink stone and the paper. It is the remarkable illustrative of customary carefully assembled paper with a background marked by over 1500 years. Xuan paper is created in the southwest of Jing Area, Anhui Region. The mellow atmosphere, bounteous precipitation and unique Karst mountain zone gives a great domain to the development of the Tara Wingceltis tree – which is known by the name of Blue Sandalwood Pteroceltis tatarinowii and rice; both the plants are utilized as crude materials for the making of paper (Compestine & Xuan, 2016). There are many waterways in Jing Province, particularly two tributaries upriver of Wu Stream, one of them, which is handling the crude material, and the other one is acidic, which is good for creating paper.
The tree covering is utilized as the main material of Xuan paper and blended in extent with rice straw. There are more than 140 stages required in creating different kinds of Xuan papers. With constant advancement new papers have been effectively imagined since 1949 (Compestine & Xuan, 2016). The Xuan paper has a solid, smooth surface and an unadulterated, clean surface as a result of its imperviousness to wrinkling, erosion, moths and mould, it is notable for its life span. The Xuan paper is an aesthetic creation made with smoothness by the Chinese working individuals. It is likewise trusted that without it, the Chinese calligraphy and painting can't completely express the excitement of workmanship. The conventional attributes are upgraded by the manual creation of Xuan paper, which does not utilize present day hardware.
The material Xuan paper uses are identified with the geology of Jing District. The generation of Xuan paper can be approximately depicted as an 18 stage handle, and a point by point record would include over a hundred. Some paper producers have concocted steps, which have been kept mystery from others. The procedure incorporates steaming and fading the bark of the tree and in addition the expansion of an assortment of juices.
The Chinese individuals have adored Xuan paper since the times of the Tang Tradition. It achieved its prime amid the Qing Tradition and many brands showed up, for example, the Wang Liuji and Wang Tonghe; those who won enormous prizes consistently, at home and abroad. Presently their image Hong Xion has turned into a renowned national brand qualified for Band of Origin Protection from the Department of Technical Supervision (Owen, 1996). It is likewise getting to be famous in Japan and different spots that adoration fine paper.
Today, Xuan Paper faces many difficulties; the individuals who develop the trees and rice for the crude materials are thinking that its difficult to bring home the bacon, and imitators, especially those of lower quality, likewise undermine the brand, subsequently there is no conviction for the eventual fate of this astounding paper with its long, glad history.
Compestine, Y. C., & Xuan, Y. S. (2016). The story of paper.
Owen, S. (1996). An anthology of Chinese literature: Beginnings to 1911. New York: W.W. Norton.
Within papermaking there is a lot of equipment – you got your vats, your molds, deckles, buckets, hoses, presses, dryer boxes, blotters, etc, etc, etc. But above all the beater is king. Without someway to break down the fiber you got nothing.
After all most of the items are pretty common place. Take some water, a blender two old picture frames and some old window screen and you can pretty much make paper. Problem is that it will be kind of lump and bumpy, not hold up real well, be hard to write or draw on, and generally not perform for anything than being able to view it as a piece of paper that you made. Begging question – if it doesn’t function the way we ask paper to function than is it really even paper? Regards of its paperness we must look at the reason why.
The reason paper turn out so poorly when made using a is because the paper that comes from a blender is chopped while the paper that comes from a beater is macerated. The action of macerating elongates the fibers allowing them to flow together creating a strong woven hydrogen bond while also being able to compress down into a flat even sheet, and the way to do this is with a beater.
Since around 1673CE (Library of Congress) western papermaking has been reliant on the design of one tool for its papermaking – The Hollander Beater. This oval trough with a cogged wheel and a bed plates does a fantastic job on macerating fibers of all kinds. The issue with it is accessibility. The market for these machines is pretty limited and they are built to last so new Hollander Beaters are made to order and run you somewhere in the ballpark of $10,000. That right there is a pretty heafty sum of money to come up with on the front of starting a new papermaking studio, and to my mind is the main prevention of papermaking expanding within the arts.
I became interested because it would seem to me that in the age of the Do-it-Yourself movement, wiki-how and youtube fix it videos, we could come up with a solution to this problem. I got to wondering if papermaking has been around since 105 CE (Asunción 9) but the Hollander Beater didn’t come on the scene until around 1673CE how was the paper being beaten for for other 1500 year? Maybe this could be a clue into how to make a beater that is more affordable and still produces the same product. Here you will find a survey of different paper beating machines and methods.
Hand Beating – In the beginning there was hand beating. The Chinese made paper from rags, finishing nets, mulberry tree bark, nettles, and hemp that were softened with lime and fermented before crushing and grinding them by hand to a pulp using a hand mortar. (Asunción 14)
Though a very early and possibly considered rough, primitive method some of the most beautiful papers are still made today using a similar process. For many fibers like Kozo or Gampii a cooking in caustic solution followed by a hand beating with mallets or wooden paddles is used. From afar someone seeing the rhythmic beating of wet pulp with a piece of wood may even seem slightly barbaric. However, after the suspending in water and pulling a sheet it creates some of the must beautiful and delicate paper often with slight wispy hairs suspended within.
Japanese Stamper – Not surprisingly following hand paper beating came a tool that would beat paper in a similar way but without the laborious work. Though in Japanese papermaking the beating is really secondary to the preparation of the fiber in the cooking and washing stages. “Fiber selection, cooking and washing are the most crucial preparatory steps in Japanese papermaking” “Minor variations in cooking and washing can produce very different papers even from the same fiber” (Barrett 35) While there are many variations based on area, mill and the papermaker the general process is “boiling the fiber in a strong alkali solution to dissolve most of the lignin, pectin, waxes, and gums, leaving primarily cellulose fiber and hemicelluloses.” (Barrett 36) After that the fiber is put into clean water and meticulously inspected – picking out and removing small bits of left over bark or imperfections until the fiber is a consistent tone. Following the cleaning the fiber is ready to be beaten. “The fiber is twisted into thread and woven into tight patches of cloth” “millions of long straight fibers, all laying closely together” “The fibers stand loosely together in the bark…ready to come apart” (Barrett 44) after this the fiber is beaten for only around 30 minutes. The beater itself was invented in “1920’s to substitute for hand beating” (Barrett 46) The stamper beater consists of a metal shaft with a hardwood striker mounted to the bottom, that can travel freely vertically as well as rotates. It is bolted into a sturdy wooden frame and powered by an electric motor that when running raises and lowers the striking part of the machine into a small basin at the bottom where the fiber is kept. For final processing a Naginata beater is often used (Barrett 46)
Naginata Beater – The Naginata beater came on the scene after the invention of the stamping beater. In the use of the stamper the purpose is not to chop, cut or macerate the fiber. The goal is rather to separate the fibers from each other. After stamping the fiber is put into the Naginata to “tease” the fibers apart. The Naginata looks very much like a western Hollander beater, an ovular trough with a mechanical apparatus that the fiber and water passes through. Unlike the the Hollander the roll and the bedplate have been removed. In there place is a series of curved dull knife like thanes attached to a rotating horizontal shaft and powered by an electric motor. These curved “blades” are what gives the Naginata its name, originally coming from the the name for the curved halberd used in battle. While the Naginata is running for about 20 minutes or so depending on the fiber the dull blades chop at the water and fiber freeing the strands of fiber from each other and separated them from each other – suspended in the water and ready for sheet forming (Barrett)
Western Stamper – Before the invention of the Hollander beater in the western world the use of the western style paper stamper was the main tool of the papermaking industry. The stamper normally consisted of 3 or more hammer like heads that would land their blow inside of a rounded bottom stone trough. Often metal was used at the bottom of the trough to increase longevity. The head of the hammer that came in contact with the bottom of the trough would be outfitted with a gridding of nails or sometimes a custom cast plate or head – similar in appearance to the bed plate of a Hollander beater. The arm of the hammer attached to a pivot point that would allow the hammer to raise and fall. The force causing the raising and falling of the hammer was powered by a rotating shaft outfitted with pegs interspersed so that the hammers would raise and fall in separate timing from each other. This shaft would often be powered by water and a mill running alongside of the building the beater was housed in. Prior to beating rags, where were the primary source of paper, was cooked or most often retted (rotted). The fiber was then poured into the trough and processed –typically taking around 3-5 days. “The behavior of the pulp under the hammers perfectly fits the various descriptions made in the 18th century. When a hammer is raised, it creates a depression which draws in the pulp expelled by the drop of the neighboring hammer.” (Moulin à papier)
601 Production LTD, Traditional Paper Making Process, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lltkdyE1OG0, May 25, 2012
Asunción, Josep. The Complete Book of Papermaking. Lark Books, 2003
Avi Michael, Chancery Papermaking, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-PmfdV_cZU, May 28, 2003
Barrett, T., “European Papermaking Techniques 1300–1800.” Paper through Time: Nondestructive Analysis of 14th- through 19th-Century Papers. The University of Iowa. Last modified July 14, 2014. http://paper.lib.uiowa.edu /european.php.
Barrett, Timothy. Japanese Papermaking. John Weatherhill Inc., 1983
Library of Congress. Papermaking Art and Craft. Vinmar Lithography Company, 1968
Moulin à papier. http://www.moulinduverger.com/papier-main/article-42.php. 2006
sararingler, Kozo Beating, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgXZLkwJqZ0, July 16, 2009
stampochpress, Handmade papermaking and handcasting type, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MTb7Nt9jNY, November 7, 2007
Turkish Marbling is a process for creating decorative papers that have a patterns that resemble the organic patterns found in marble stones. The process originated in the middle east and spread to Europe around 1600. It involves dropping pigment suspended in water into a shallow tray of water mixed with sizing. Then the artist can drag combs and brushes through the water in order to move the pigment and change the pattern. The pigments can be layered to create very colorful patterns. Once the design is finished, the artist lays the paper across the water and then picks it up. The paper picks up the pigment in the pattern that it laid in on the surface of the water. Marbling can also be done on paper, wood or other porous surfaces. Sizing is added to the water so that the pigment will float on the surface of the water. The traditional sizing is made from carrageenan seaweed, but methyl cellulose can also be used. The pigments can be suspended in water based inks, gouache, oil paint, or acrylic paint. But in order to use acrylic paints, the paper must be coated in a mordant such as aluminum sulfate to act as a fixative. There are many named patterns within the marbling technique, such as the French Curl pattern, or the shell pattern. But many patterns are simply classified by how they are made: either combed or thrown. The library at the University of Washington has an extensive collection of marbled papers, a gallery of which can be viewer online here.
Suminigashi, the Japanese form of paper marbling, was practiced as early as the 10th century. There is also documentation of paper marbling during the Ming Dynasty in China around the 14th century. Marbling became an art form in Turkey in the 15th century, but it is difficult to determine whether the Turkish form originated from those East Asian countries. However, people began importing marbled paper from Turkey to Europe in the 16th century. In addition, they tried to replicate the process. But, they used different pigments, papers and chemicals depending on what was available to them locally, and this resulted in different patterns. Therefore, scholars can determine a book’s country of origin based on the pigments, papers and patterns used on its marbled end-sheets. Europeans were the first to develop the practice of marbling the fore edge of books.
Mostly contemporary books are commercially produced, therefore hand marbled end sheets are not as common as they once were. But today, marbled paper is still used in artists books and limited edition finely bound books. Furthermore, the practice has recently gained widespread appeal in mainstream crafting communities and has become a popular motif in interior design. One of my favorite contemporary examples of artists working with marbling is Pernille Snedker Hansen, who is based in Copenhagen. She marbles planks of wood and installs them as flooring. I believe that her contemporary sense and use of color is really modernizing and re-contextualizing the tradition.
By Isabel Cervantes
I’m sure we all think of Egypt and papyrus when we think about the origins of paper, however, paper as it exists today traces back to China. Credit for the invention of paper was given to T’sai Lun, an official tied to the Imperial court during the Han Dynasty.
After beginning in China, the process spread across Asia, the Middle East, and then Europe. In each of those places the process was generally the same. It was the Arabian technique that the Italians improved upon by the use of water for power, a stamping mill, wire mesh molds and various other things.
At first, the process used old rags and plant based materials to produce paper. However, advances in the printing process created a larger demand for paper and thus a shortage of those raw materials. Then, with the invention of a wood grinding machine, came the use of wood based paper and the further mechanization of the whole process. In the traditional process, these materials were heated in a solution, beaten down into a pulp and then bleached to take color away or had color added. A mold with a wire screen, called a “deckle,” was dipped into the solution and pulled out horizontally in order to create a sheet of pulp on the screen. This sheet was then placed on felt or cloth and stacked with others to be pressed. After pressing, the sheets were hung to dry. The dry sheets were then adjusted to have preferred properties such as improved strength or reduced water absorbency.
As mentioned before, because of the growing demand for paper and the time it took to complete the traditional process, a faster more mechanized way was created. However, even in this modern day process you can see remaining traditional aspects. In this process quality is often measured by what percentage of the paper is not made of wood pulp which is the cheap alternative used in mass production,
Below are videos of the traditional process as it is carried out in some places in South Korea and also a video example of how paper is mass produced for purposes other than art.
As you can see, whether its the traditional way or the modern day way, the paper making process is not something that can be done in only one way. It is constantly being improved upon and has many levels of difficulty. You can even make your own paper at home from various recycled materials! In the end, the time consuming traditional ways of paper making across the world are worthy of appreciation.