Listening to Kozo and Kangaroo Grass

Late last year I participated in an international online kozo papermaking workshop with US artist Amy Richard.  Read about it in my blog post HERE.  Amy is offering another round of workshops during May, you can find information on the workshops HERE.

I have made kozo paper both in Australia and Japan, but never from the point of collection of the fibre from the Paper Mulberry tree, so Amy's workshop was very enlightening as to the whole process.

From the kozo paper that I have made, I created an artist book.  I wanted to capture both the long meditative process of kozo papermaking with the soft rustling sound of kangaroo grass heads waving in the breeze.  Kangaroo grass is a native grass that I grow in my garden - its leaves make nice paper and the seed heads are wonderful to use in my monoprinting.

For this book, I chose white oil based etching ink.  Oil based for a long drying time which extends my working time, and white so that I could play with the idea of ephemerality and the gorgeous transparency of the paper.

I have titled the book 'Silent : Listen' which is from a poem I wrote during a kayaking trip amongst the mangroves:

I cut through

jagged reflections

drifting

silent

then with the exhale

of the full tide

my ears 

mouth

listen

Even though the poem describes a moment in a kayak journey, it also speaks about the healing power of listening.

And this is my artist statement:

This long landscape format book is a meditation on the beauty of the kozo fibre and the native Kangaroo Grass which grows in my garden.  I have gently layered the transparent kozo with the pale ghost imagery of the seed heads waving gracefully in the breeze to honour a quiet moment of contemplation.

I embedded thread into some of the papers 
when I made them.
The grass imagery is printed over the top
when the papers were dry.

The book is a long landscape format
with a machine sewn spine, like a stab
binding.  Its meant to be loose and casual to
reflect its meditation on the grass and fibre.
The long soft pages slow down the
experience of the book.

I machine sewed the book title
which is printed with letterpress.
I'm aiming to print the whole poem in letterpress
one day, just need to get back into
Fiona's studio as I don't have letterpress equipment.
.