papers and paper art, made from locally foraged plant fibers

paper connected to community

White Leaf: locally grown, small batch paper

each sheet is unique in all the world

I collect plants for pulp fiber as close to home as I can, limiting myself to invasive plants on the prohibited plant list or to agricultural byproducts, like corn husks

Beautiful - Tactile, smooth but fibrous, rattly paper in shades of white, cream, tan and green.
Slow - Made by an ancient, hand process of dozens of steps. Every step includes the human hand, and many steps include only the human hand.
Enduring - This paper can last for centuries.

My papers are made of the fibers of:

Locally Invasive Plants
leaves or stems

Chinese Silvergrasss (Miscanthus sinensis)

Common Reed (Phragmites australis)

Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica)

Yellow Flag Iris (Iris pseudacorus)

Locally Invasive Plants
inner bark

White Mulberry (Morus Alba)

Bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus)

Native or Agricultural Plants

Corn husks (Zea mays)

Hemp (Cannabis sativa)

Milkweed floss (Asclepias syriaca)

how the paper is made

I make White Leaves.

My paper is built from the leaves and stems of the plants in my garden, on my street, in my neighborhood.

Friends and neighbors give me leaves from their gardens, and point me to stands of wild plants for harvest.

The leaves or stems pass through a process that can last a year and a half or more, and comprises dozens of steps. When the paper finally emerges, in very small batches, it is precious.

Handmade

My paper is made in an artisan's studio, using an ancient, low tech process of dozens of steps. Every step includes the human hand, and many steps include only the human hand.

Pulp

Paper is made from cellulose, a fiber found in all plants.The plants I forage are cut, chopped, and trimmed. Then the usable parts are boiled in a water solution of high pH., dissolving everything but the cellulose.The extracted cellulose is reduced to a pulp in a handmade machine called a Hollander Beater.

Sheet formation

That pulp is floated in a vat of water, and a screen is passed through the vat from the bottom to the top to collect the pulp in a smooth layer.

Now something happens,

which only happens in papermaking ---

the individual tiny cellulose fibers form a chemical bond that rarely occurs in nature, turning the mass of fibers into a sheet of paper.