Transformations into the Botanical Conversation Masters of Fine Arts Research & Exhibition by Tony Joseph Carlone Table of Contents Introduction . 3 First Form of Study: Seed Bomb as Natural Farming . 3 Second Form of Study: Material Exploration . 5 Third Form of Study: Natural Dye . 7 Fourth Form of Study: Pulp as a Sculptural Medium . 8 Exhibition Description . 12 Closing Thoughts . 13 Works Cited . 14 Materials List . 16 Show Card . 17 Exhibition Images . 18 Artist Statement . 34 2 “As papermakers, we need to be plant people as well as paper people. Just as we propose the necessity of printers and book makers to understand paper, we papermakers need to know plants well, not just how to harvest and process them, but what impact our harvesting has on the plant and on the environment. Do the materials speak to the content of the work?” - Mary Tasillo Introduction As a hand papermaker and printmaker, I see my work as a hybrid between the two processes. I am interested in creating local-plant based art by using the natural environment as a source of inspiration, raw material, and the beginnings of a social conversation. The works I make uses forms that echo themselves in the natural world and attempt to explore the symbiotic relationship between humans and their environment. Through four forms of study I explore the use of the seed bomb as a method of natural farming, material exploration of raw fibers, natural dyes derived from plant material, and the use of pulp as a sculptural medium. First Form of Study: Seed Bomb as Natural Farming “Nature does not change, although the way of viewing nature invariably changes from age to age. No matter the age, natural farming exists forever as the wellspring of agriculture.” - Masanobu Fukuoka It was during a presentation from the Hudson Valley Seed Library that I was first introduced to the seed ball, also known as a seed bomb, a small object that packs seeds together within a growing medium. Designed to be directly sowed, seed bombs are an easy and sustainable way to cultivate plants into neglected lots, inaccesible areas, or even your own flowerbeds. Having my interest peaked, and working with handmade paper at the time, I began embedding seeds in my work, resulting in a first crop of pulp cast seed bombs containing seeds for marigold, scarlet flax, teddy bear sunflower, hollyhock, watermelon radish, and basil. Having a strong desire to see the transformation from seed 3 to sheet, I began to investigate what kind of paper was hidden inside these plants as well as those that flourished around me in the natural environment. Having the time and space to grow a majority of the fibers used, I began by sowing the seed bombs on top of the soil in my garden beds. The soil was left untilled, without the use of fertilizers, compost or chemicals, and only minimal weed suppression. Without even knowing I was practicing natural farming, an ecological farming approach to cooperate with nature rather than trying to “improve” upon nature by conquest. This agricultural philosophy was established over forty years ago by Japanese farmer and philosopher Masanobu Fukuoka who is also responsible for rediscovering the technique for creating seed balls. Natural farming, based on the recognition of the complexity of living organisms that shape an ecosystem and deliberately exploiting it, consists of four principles: (1) no human cultivation, that is no plowing or turning of the soil, (2) no chemical fertilizer or prepared compost, (3) no weeding by tillage or herbicides, weeds should be controlled, no eliminated and (4) no dependence on chemicals that is nature, left alone, is in perfect balance (Fukuoka, 33-46). Following these basic principles I began growing various plants from seed and bulb while transplanting others into the ground acquired from a local nursery such as; blue flax, daylily, cordyline, corn, dracaena, milkweed, gladiolus, reed feather grass, hosta, hydrangea, sunflower, iris, porcupine grass, strawberries and cream ribbon grass, and yucca. For my thesis exhibition, three hundred Pulp Cast Seed Bombs were placed in Offering Bowl, with the viewer able to take-away one with my hopes they would decide to plant theirs. This second crop of seed bombs was made with cotton pulp and contained the seeds of such plants as marigold, milkweed, scarlet flax, sunflower, cornflower, love- in-a-mist, poppy, jaccob’s ladder, hollyhock, english lavender, russian sage, lunaria, and cosmos. Attached to each Pulp Cast Seed Bomb was also a set of printed directions: “Throw your seed bomb into any vacant lot, or garden bed. So long as it gets some sunlight and water, it can make the land beautiful and useful again; restore plant and wildlife populations; nourish and feed the soil, people and animals; bring communities together, and educate.” 4 Second Form of Study: Material Exploration “The artist does not make paper but, instead helps it materialize from the vat’s cool, clean water...swirling and cloud-like creating a fresh, wet, fragile skin...invisible, vulnerable...transformed...tough yet delicate...dead yet very much alive as paper. At these moments in papermaking, the activity is so all consuming that occurs.” - C.E. Licka There is nothing new about the use of plant fibers for papermaking as there is no definitive way to do anything in papermaking. The use of plant fibers for contemporary art with paper is in keeping with long-standing traditions and is appropriate for current hand papermaking methods. While plant fibers may not be of interest to all papermakers because of time-consuming preparations and small yields, they do offer interesting additions and alternatives to those who desire an expanded pulp palette. There is a tremendous range of plants available and the variety of papers that can be made from their fibers so the artist, by choice of fiber and its pulping treatment, has great control and flexibility with the resulting papers that comprise the final aesthetic work (Bell, 34). Sources for raw plant material are quite plentiful and can be sustainably harvested from; home garden plants, weeds, food crops, wild shrubs and trees, prunings, roadsides, vacant lots, building sites, farms, industrial sites, and along railroad tracks. After the plant material has been obtained and the fiber type has been established, experiments can be done with the various separation, cooking, beating, and sheet formation methods to see which are best suited to the fiber and indeed the fiber ideal for the artist’s papermaking purpose (Bell, 15). For this body of work I have restricted my research to seed fibers, bast fibers, leaf fibers and grass fibers My artistic practice utilizes local fibers from my gardens, agricultural waste, foraged and invasive species of upstate New York to create the pulps and handmade papers that I used. The foraged and invasive species harvested include; cattail, milkweed, pampas grass, Japanese knotweed, spear thistle, and yellow iris. While plant 5 fibers have unique properties like luster, transparency and great strength, the most important thing to remember is that everything is variable. The season harvested affects the fiber length and paper color. The soil in which the plant grows affects the plant’s growth, which in turn affects the fiber quality (Bell, 16). The portion of a plant used is the cellulose fiber. While all plants contain cellulose, some contain a higher percentage than others. In order to be made suitable for papermaking, the cellulose portion of the plant must first be separated from substances that are non-cellulose. After the fibers have been separated by retting, steaming, stripping, or decortication, they were soaked in water twenty-four hours prior to cooking All fibers underwent a cooking process prior to being beaten into pulp. Cooking frees and purifies by eliminating appreciable amounts of lignin, impure matter, and other non-cellulose substances. In order to avoid adding any trace minerals to the pulp, the damp fibers were packed into a stainless steel pot and covered with cold water. For each quart of water one tablespoon of soda ash, an alkali, was added to the pot. The pH of the alkaline solution needs to be between twelve and fourteen in order to eliminate the non-cellulose materials. The alkaline solution and fibers were slowly brought to a boil, and let to simmer for a minimum of two hours; some fibers requiring a longer cook. After cooking was completed, the fibers were rinsed thoroughly to remove all traces of alkali. It is at this stage the rinsed, damp fibers were ready to be dyed. In order for the cooked fiber to be made into a sheet of paper, it needed to undergo a beating process. If the fiber is beaten a short time, a thick blotter type of paper results. If the fiber is beaten for a moderate amount of time, a crisp paper results. If the fiber is beaten for a longer amount of time, a thin tracing-type paper is produced (Bell, 24). The beating methods used for my thesis body of work include; pounding mallets, blender and a Hollander beater. In order to create a stronger paper, the raw plant fiber pulps were combined with naturally dyed cotton or abaca, which is discussed further in the third form of study. For the pulp to be made into sheets of paper, a screen was needed. The western sheet and 6 modified Japanese sheet formation methods were used to make the handmade sheets of paper included in Transformations into the Botanical Conversation, Offering Bowl, and used to make the pulp castings used in Pendants I - VIII. After a post of wet papers was made, it was placed in a five ton hydraulic press; the sheets of paper were further dried in a stack dryer or used for casting processes.