Seaweed Paper Art
An introduction to the processes involved in making seaweed paper
Catherine Stringer has developed her unique seaweed papermaking techniques over many years of private research and experimentation.
So how did it all begin?
I was fortunate enough to undertake an art residency on King Island in 2011. One of King Island’s industries is harvesting their bull kelp, so I thought I’d like to do something with the kelp whilst I was there. I’ve always loved seaweed, and I’d done a lot of paintings of seaweed, but I wanted to try doing something with the actual kelp. I decided to try using it to make paper.
I’d never done any papermaking before and I didn’t know much about it. I couldn’t find any information about making paper from seaweed, but I read everything I could find about papermaking using plants, and then I just started experimenting.
My first results with the bull kelp were a bit discouraging. It is probably one of the hardest seaweeds to use! But I then tried using a variety of other seaweeds, and some of them gave some exciting results.
How did you go from those beginnings to making the sort of artworks that you produce these days?
It took a lot of trial and error, learning the best ways to process the different seaweeds. Then I had to decide what to do with it! I experimented a lot with different ideas, most of which were not very successful.
I had been drawn to the story of the Neva shipwreck on King Island ever since I first learned of it, and even more so when I discovered that 28 of the 200 or so women and children on board the Neva shared my name, Catherine. I decided to make a funeral gown for the youngest Catherine, who was only 6 monthsn old. This also took a while for me to figure out how to do it, but I finally made something I was reasonably happy with.
I then went on refine and improve my techniques, and I made a whole body of work relating to the Neva.
So what are the steps in your process? Presumably you have to first find some seaweed?
Yes, gathering the seaweed is the first step, and for me it is an integral part of the whole process. I love being near the sea, and collecting seaweeds helps me really notice my surroundings and the different seaweeds, and helps me connect with the specific locality. That’s important to me, as a lot of my work pertains to a particular location, eg shipwrecks and lighthouses. Wherever possible I use locally gathered seaweeds for these pieces.
The seaweed then needs to be carefully washed and sorted. I especially want to remove any sand at this stage, as it is much harder to remove later in the process and it really detracts from the finished paper.
The seaweed is then cooked in an alkaline solution, in small batches of either the same or similar seaweeds. This is a bit smelly so I do it outside!
Once cooked adequately, the pulp is thoroughly rinsed and neutralised.
I keep notes and make small test sheets for reference. The pulp is then ready to go! The paper is made in water, using custom deckles. Each piece is unique; I rarely use the same deckle more than once.
Most of your work looks like it contains more than one type of seaweed. Are these collages?
I combine multiple different pulps in the one piece. It’s a bit like painting with the pulp. Some pieces may have 10 or 12 different pulps, others only a few.
I usually make the work as a single sheet of paper - no cutting or gluing. I don’t like the hard edges that result from cutting, I prefer the natural deckle edges. All the Neva Reliquary works are single sheets, except for the largest ones which I made in two or three parts as I didn’t have large enough moulds. But I do now – eg The Cape Bruny Lightouse Keeper’s Wife is a single sheet.
Some of the artworks in Seal Woman don’t look like single sheets?
In the Seal Woman series I was really experimenting and pushing the medium, exploring other ways to make images. Some of these are collages, but the individual parts have almost all been made separately, not cut. In I Dream of the Sea and Towards the Light, for example, the individual shapes of seals and seaweed have been attached to canvas, and background pulp painted or sprayed on. In Sea of Seals and My Sadness Engulfs Me, the separate pieces have been layered onto board using resin.
I am still experimenting with new ways to use this amazing medium!
The seaweed papermaking process is also desribed in the Penguin Parade video.
