One of the electives Ursuline offered was Papermaking which I was strongly encouraged to do and it was so worth it. I learned a lot about the Peace Paper and also how to implement papermaking in art therapy interventions. Here you go and hope you enjoy it! If you are an art therapist or counselor, and they offer this course again, I strongly recommend it!
Taking this papermaking class, I was expecting to find and learn new techniques to use in my future art therapy practice. I was not aware of the power the papermaking process can have and how these interventions can specifically help those cope with trauma and work toward social action. This class was inspirational, fun, and a motivational experience to think of new ways to use these interventions for social action and using this technique in my own practice. This paper will reflect on my experience learning about papermaking and what I have taken from a different and new process.
One interesting aspect of the papermaking class was having Drew Matott come and present. He is the founder of the Peace Paper Project and told us about this organization as well as the whole process of traditional papermaking. Peace Paper is an organization that collaborates with an art therapist in the United States and uses hand papermaking as a tool to help cope with trauma, work through grief and loss, and also work toward social action. Getting the background of ancient papermaking and how they make paper today was an interesting process and gave me an understanding and respect for the history of it all. It was amazing to see the process and create our own paper. We were encouraged to bring meaningful materials, so I brought a T-shirt that I was wearing when I met my husband and while my process was not about grief or letting go, it was a powerful one of accepting and allowing love. Tearing up the shirt was interesting for me because my mind went to all the memories of this day and I truly understood how this can be a meaningful experience in many different ways. The next part of putting the cloth into the Hollander Beater to create pulp was also a pretty symbolic and meaningful experience that could represent letting go. Letting go can be a difficult and hard step, but allowing the meaningful material to be ripped up and then placed into the beater could mean growth for the one letting go in a realistic manner. After the cloth became pulp, the creating of paper started which was interesting and fun. Learning a different way to get variety in the paper was fantastic and got me wishing the class could be a whole week rather than two days. Getting to go through the whole process of tearing the clothing up, pulping it, and then making the paper was satisfying, and felt as if I went through a mini journey. I mentioned my meaningful material was about allowing and accepting love and through the process of papermaking, I felt a soothing growth within. The memories associated with the material can also provide a way to revisit positive feelings from the past while also looking forward to the future.
While I know I won’t have the machinery that the Peace Paper Project used, they showed us alternative ways to create paper in a simplistic way which still provides a satisfying experience. By having a blender dedicated to papermaking, using colored paper, and premade pulp, a therapist can provide a papermaking experience for a client in a simplistic way. After this class, my mind wandering to the different populations and ways papermaking could be helpful. I had many ideas on how papermaking can be used where I am interning specifically with children and adolescents and how this transformative process can be used to help clients reclaim and change. A lot of my ideas surround child bereavement and how grief can be a hard thing to go through especially for a child. The process of papermaking can really empower the client but also help them move toward growth and letting go. I think this is also a topic that education about grief is important and papermaking can be used to implement and explain the stages and importance of the grieving process. The papermaking process takes work and stages similar to the grieving stages.
This papermaking class has been an inspirational experience that has helped me learn, not only about papermaking as a technique but the advantages it can have for clients. By getting to create and use my own meaningful material to make paper, I have seen the potential of papermaking and had my own personal growth. Through this class, I have also started to think of the ways this technique can be for different populations and where I am currently working.
Below are two art pieces created from the paper made in class.
8x11 Acrylic Paint on papermaking paper. Used scrap pieces of papermaking paper to add texture. A fine line pen was added on top of the paint and added paper scraps. The paper made me think organically and naturally, so I created an abstract flower arrangement. This is symbolic of growth and allowing change in my life.
8x11 This paper was made with a blender and we added rosemary which created an interesting texture on the paper. For this piece, I wanted to again stay in a natural/organic focus and used the texture and flower petals as a source of the art. I used pens to create the branch-like marks and it really again depicts growth and just being. Letting the season, I am in grow me in the ways I need to be a better and more whole person.
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