The Rhinoceros Project team are currently Artists-in-Residence at the Larry Spring Museum for Common Sense Physics in Fort Bragg. We’re using the residency as a retreat in which we are catching up and planning ahead.
Our original 2020 plans included launching a new website and offering sewing circles on our new monumental embroidery in New York, Philadelphia, and throughout California. With the impact of SARS-Covid-19, we were, like everyone, forced to change our plans. In the stillness of the quarantine, we’ve been appreciating the time to reflect.
A little over a year ago we staged the test pour of the enormous Rhinoceros watermark at Pacific Textile Arts. Above is the pouring mould built for us by Anderson’s Alternatives, made from locally-harvested Douglas Fir, being milled below.
Like it sounds, a pouring mould is designed for paper pulp to literally be poured into its frame, retaining the pulp whilst the water drains out. Both of us had poured large sheets before, however never with the amount of precision that was needed to capture an embroidered watermark.
At the same time, we needed the mould to be modular, something we could assemble and disassemble for storage. With the help of Anderson’s Alternatives, we arrived at a hybrid design combining elements of eastern and western traditional papermaking moulds.
Friends and family were a source of amazing help during the day. Below, Anne’s nephew, Abe Vollman assists in attaching the bottom braces of the mould.
The framework was then turned over, leveled, and a layer of two by four crossbeams stretching lengthwise are placed across the bottom braces. A final layer of mitered 2 x 3′s are hammered into place with spacers in between, below.
After the support is assembled, a window blind is laid over the frame to act as a “su” - to support the embroidery evenly. This later turned out to be problematic, as the plastic did not permit air movement and hindered the drying of the paper. For our “real” pour later, we substituted bamboo.
The embroidery was laid over the the “su.”
A deckle frame was laid on top, and the embroidery was stretched taut.
In preparation for pouring this sheet, we had watched and studied videos with other papermakers who make big sheets, including Hong Hong and the Awagami Paper Mill. From Awagami’s video, we watched how the papermakers poured directionally and in a rhythm that caused the waves of paper pulp to bounce off of one another and settle evenly.
After spending two years sewing the watermark, the moment was finally here. With a mounting sense of anxiety, we gathered the buckets of pulp around the mould, and with the help of our friend Teddy Milder, poured our first giant sheet of paper. Two years of sewing, and an additional year of preparation, all boiled down to about ten seconds.
In a pouring mould of this size, the paper dries in situ, rather than being couched onto another surface. Due to the plastic underneath, we had some difficulties getting the paper to dry. It also became apparent that we needed to pour much less pulp, and that the pulp needed to be beaten finer.
We had to do a substantial amount of sponge, sham wow, and broom pressing from above to extract as much water as we could before having to move it indoors three days after the pour.
As a result of having to move it indoors before it was completely dry, the paper dried without substantial restraint, and so cockled into the above sculptural form resembling rhinoceros skin, which nearly stands on its own due to the excessive amount of poured pulp. For a first trial, though, we deemed it a success!
