Mississippi River Trips

This summer I am working on a fellowship at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. I have been working on a project that combines natural fibers with the texture of the place with pulp painting, line bleeds and screen printing with pulp (which I learned about at the SGC conference in Chicago this Spring from Jen Thomas)
I am going up the Mississippi as far as it goes in Minnesota along the Great River Road (a stretch of connecting roads that follow the Mississippi River for 575 miles within the state and almost 3,000 miles across 10 states). My first stretch was to Hasting, MN south of Minneapolis about 30-45 minutes. I visited the Schaars Bluff Park and took the following photos. I also made some rubbings, which I will scan and post soon.

Felix's Housecat...

... looks just like mine.

Maps and Diagrams

The following are selections of maps and diagrams I found interesting from the Iron World Research Center in Chisholm, MN.
A mining map of Hibbing, an area we visited along the way
An old map of Minneapolis I found before 35 and 94 were around.
Hand painted maps of mining areas and locations where 'no ore' was found

The Iron Range

Friday evening, Liz Plahn, Colin Tretcher and I ventured northward to Chisholm, MN on the Iron Range in search of blue collar working Americans. The following is a collection of images and memories from the trip. Those crispys'll be a few minutes.
the team creates an elaborate plan of attack
A view of one of the iron pits
While Colin checks out the blasting site, Liz checks out some sweet screenprinted didactics
Amazing plaster people in Iron World
Plucky, the Research center's beaver taxidermy mascot. (Next year they're saving up to get his chin stapled shut)
As per usual, Liz with a pile of research
Last looks as we head out of town and journey back to the Cities
A quick stop forthe end of sunset at a trail head with machines parts displayed as sculptures. Really amazing

Process of Paper

Saturday night I processed the cooked fiber that I had collected from the Minnesota River Valley and pulled sheets of paper. Below is some of the documentation of that process.

the fiber after 4 hours of cooking in Soda Ash.

The fiber after 20 minutes of beating with a wooden mallet
(shown at the top of the image)

The formed sheet has barriers built into the mould to create long strips when pulled apart. The texture of the fibers will create the visual interest and content of the books

Minnesota River Valley

Two weekends ago I traveled an hour south west with MCAD Alumni, Isaac Berends and MCAD student, Allegra Denton. Each of us went for a variety of reasons, but mine was to collect more logs for my sculptural books. Along the way I also came upon some nice reeds that I will make paper out of to create the pages, as well as the content. Here are some photos of that trip:
We really didn't see this beaver, but I imagine it was his cousin or close family friend that chewed the tree that we saw.
These are the reeds I brought back with me from the area shown above. In the past three days I have been soaking them and then I cooked them with soda ash for 4 hours. I'll make the paper today, so hopefully by tomorow it will be dry.