August 2017 - Flax foraging, processing and more paper-making

At the end of July I saw an ad on Facebook Whangarei Buy, Sell and Swap. The advert read: FLAX FREE TO GOOD HOME QUITE BIG CAN TAKE ALL JUST NEED TO BREAK IT DOWN..READY TO PICK UP....IN KAMO AREA

Well, I responded immediately in the hope it was still available.

And it was - so next day I took a trip up to Kamo to collect it

My little car was full to the brim!

 Lucky for me I have a hatchback so the seats fold down. Even so, I needed to do a second trip to collect the rest of it.

I wasn't working on Saturday the 12th and it dawned a beautiful sunny day, perfect for sitting outside cutting up flax in preparation for cooking

It was so warm I had to change into shorts and a tee-shirt!

I had the company of my cat, Tibby while I worked.

I wish I had an easier way to cut the flax than just a sharp knife but I do find it quite cathartic and before I know it I have filled up a stockpot for cooking. 

I threw in some banana palm that is constantly reappearing in my garden

..and added the second pot to be cooked up. I add caustic soda, which when cooked with plant materials separates the cellulose and non cellulose matter from the plant. This batch was simmered and cooked for 5-6 hours

The cat moved once in that time..but only to follow the sun.

I still have a lot of flax left but as it is starting to die (and curl making it harder to cut) I need to get it into some water "to keep it" fresh until I can cut the rest of it up.

My outdoor bath makes for a good receptacle for the flax. 

We've had quite a bit of rain the past two weeks so the pool has filled up again. I kept on meaning to empty it and pack it away but I'll need lots of water to rinse the cooked flax so the rain/pool is a blessing in disguise.

I'm left with a big pile of roots to dispose of now. Shame I don't have property to plant them to grow more flax!

Paper Pulp/fibre preparation and cooking: 7 hours

On the 15th August which was a Tuesday I spent the morning rinsing the pohutukawa fibres I had previously cooked up and was keen to make some paper from the pulp.

 I tip the pulp into old pillow cases to rinse out the fibres. Unfortunately this one split while I was squeezing out the water so I had to go search for another one. (I need to get some more from the op shop)

I use plastic rubbish bins for doing the rinsing and water from the pool until it's clearish.

 The rinsed fibres then get processed through my insinkerator.

I recycle any off cuts by soaking them in some water and adding to the pulp mix.


I got lots of sheets of paper made but sadly, at the end of the day when I went to move the stack for pressing the board I had them on broke in half! They all fell on the ground. Fortunately, I've been able to carefully lift and spread them flat again - there's only a couple that creased too much to save. In between couching sheets of paper and draining the moulds I weeded the garden and took photos.

My bunnies ears have always caught my eye  - the white trim intrigues me!

I still have more pulp in the vat and plan more paper making on my days I am not working. Then, I will use it to make books.

Pohutukawa paper making - 7 hours
 (includes rinsing and processing  fibres and couching sheets of paper)

Soaps, salves and paper-making plus Markets, stalls and exhibitions

Harvesting/Processing Plant Materials for soap

 I forgot I had a box of home-grown harvested bay leaves drying in the boot of my car.

I put half them through the processor (the rest I'll keep whole)

I completed filled an ice cream container so that'll make up many batches of Gardner's Soap - Bay and (ground) Pumice. I've still got a boxful of manuka trimming to process but it's needs more drying to easily remove from the branches.

Paper-making

The beginning of June heralded in some beautiful fine weather - to good to be indoors!

The banana palms had grown like Topsy again so I cut them all back in preparation for a big "cook up" - I chopped up enough to fill my two stock pots and added the partially cooked pohutukawa leaves as well.

 

My new-to-me BBQ! I scored it for $15 from the SPCA Secondhand Store when I recently dropped off some unwanted items.

  It's bigger than my other two old BBQ's and comfortably allows both stock pots at the same time. 

When time permits I'll rinse the fibres out in the outdoor bath seen in the top photo.

 While the abaca and pohutukawa leaves where cooking I processed a preserving pan of precooked and rinsed harakeke fibres with my insinkerator.

I got real excited to see a kingfisher, was able to quickly retrieve my camera and just managed to take this photo before it flew away! 

The following day after pressing between two pieces of wood I hung them on the washing line in the sun to dry.

Then to finish them off so I could label more soap I found an ingenious way of completing the drying process...

 

...they fit perfectly between the fins of my oil heater!

 To flatten the batches of dried paper for I usually place them between the two pieces of wood again, weighting them with a concrete brick.Not very high tech but I'm learning to be resourceful and use what I've got. I've now got a really good stack of handmade paper again and was able to label soaps for The Bach, Putiputi Ra and for the upcoming TLC end-of-term Pop-Up shop and Exhibition. I'm also really interested in making book - so watch this space!

Balms (Salves)
So, I've been thinking about how I good divide up the kilo block of wax and it suddenly came to me to use a silicone cupcake mold that I'd picked up cheap.

If I remember correctly each block 

weighs approximately 50 grams. 

With some of my salves sold out and requests for 

more I spent a couple an afternoon making more.

I designed and printed the labels for the balms and used my xyron adhesive tool I bought second hand off trade Me for the labels These are destined for the "Matariki Market" and the TLC pop up shop.

Markets/Stalls

Labelling, pricing and packaging my soaps always takes way longer than I thought it would. I designed and printed out some information pamphlets for people who wanted to know a bit about my soap. I also designed a business card template to print out on my handmade paper. I found this much quicker to do with all I learned making info pamphlets so that was good!

The Matariki Whanau Market started at 10 am on Saturday
 17th June but stall holders were asked to be set up by 9 am.

These photos were taken before it started to get REALLY busy!
So busy I was almost having a panic attack - I've never seen
SO MANY people on the bridge at once!

It was a beautiful mild sunny winter's day
and this was my view from my stall.

I found the reflections in the water calming -
a tiny therapeutic window amidst the busy-ness!

Silly me didn't take a photo of my stall though.

Exhibitions

Periodically I learn of an exhibition on at the Geoff Wilson Gallery at NorthTec that interests me.  Abstraction - Latitude by Longitude caught my eye as it was an artist that used tapa cloth as a support for paint. This is how Filani Macassey's work is described...

"A specific connection with land is the theme of an exhibition of new work by Northland artist Filani Filina Macassey."

Filani has used materials sourced from the earth – paper mulberry fibre from Fiji, natural mud pigments from Northland and Fiji, charcoal, traditional dye and printing inks. The natural elements are sourced from regions with which she feels a connection to.

Fijian-born Filani is a graduate of Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland, she has been involved in many community art initiatives and has exhibited in New Zealand, Fiji and Europe. Her work is inspired by the duality of having been born in Fiji and living most of her life from the age of six and a half in New Zealand. “I suppose it is a way of creating an individualistic identity” she says. Filani recently completed an internship at the Geoff Wilson Gallery, North Tec, and is the Coordinator of the newly opened OWL Community Hub in Wellsford. After having travelled to South America and Cuba, Filani moved to Kaiwaka during October 2015 and is currently setting up an artist studio.

[Source: http://www.northtec.ac.nz/events/2017/abstraction-latitude-by-longitude]        (Photos are mine)

I had the opportunity to speak with Filani and it was really good to hear about her creative journey. She briefly shared a little about her colouring processes on tapa cloth which was what inspired me to attend the opening of her exhibition. I would like to experiment more with painting/printing and dyeing on my handmade paper. Something else to work towards.