Working with children, an installation

The idea of doing something with children came to me while I was doing a marketing course. I saw it as a way of reaching a market segment, and papermaking is something that children can easily learn and enjoy. The next thing I needed to think about was what to do with the completed paper. I came up with the idea of making prayer flags and hanging them in the park where my exhibition was to be. I then had to convince the Park Rangers that the paper would not break up and blow all around the park.

I did some trials on various fibre papers and hung some fishing line in my backyard with sheets of fibre paper stapled to it. The mixed recycled and fibre paper fell apart the first time it rained. The New Zealand flax, cordyline and marshmallow papers didn’t last much longer. Banana and ginger lily papers are still intact after over 6 months in the wind and rain, they’ve shrunk and faded but they are still whole. I then sent out requests for banana and ginger lily, thank you to those papermakers and neighbours who came to the rescue, I got plenty. I cooked up lots of both fibres and used some for the banners in my exhibition, some for the installation and I still have some for my next project.

The most daunting part was getting them beaten. My washing machine was destroyed when I put too much fibre in a bag to beat mechanically. The bag broke open clogging the drainage of the machine. We now have a new washing machine but I daren’t put fibre into it.

I decided that I could spare a day from my exhibition preparations and go to Frankston to use the Hollander Beater. We beat up the banana and were given some used mesh from a paper machine. I stapled this to the moulds I had made for the flags. I had made special moulds for the installation because I wanted the sheets to be narrower than an A4 sheet. I made two moulds and one deckle the length of an A4 and about 2/3 of the width. I used the same moulds and deckle for making paper for photo albums so based the width on that of a photograph.

I have a friend who teaches at Wattle Park Primary School and she organised for me to contact children through that school. Notices were sent home with the children and I picked the responses up in the week before the first Saturday of my exhibition. I also rang around my friends with Primary aged children and about 40 children came and made paper throughout the day.

The day went well except that it got a little hot in the afternoon and a couple of the children fainted while they were waiting to make their paper. Each child made one sheet of paper which they rolled onto a sheet of plastic and took home. They made another two or three which I pressed and took home with me to dry. The next Saturday many of the children returned to decorate their paper with crayons. The paper was a mixture of banana, ginger lily and barley (added to lighten the mix and to aid sheet formation).

I stapled some heavy duty fishing line to the eaves at the front of the stables and stapled the children’s flags to the fishing line. There were enough to go around two sides of the room at the front of the stables.

Last time I looked they were still there but had shrunk and wrinkled a little. The children enjoyed themselves and I hope some have come back to the park to look at their work.