The second workshop I attended thanks to my a•n professional development funding was a morning learning how to make paper, focusing on bagasse (sugarcane fibre) with professional paper maker and book artist Lucy Baxandall at her studio at Kingsgate Workshops on 12 June. After a wonderfully wet few hours I had some sheets of bagasse paper and the inklings of an idea about how to use this material as a sculptural medium. Using bagasse was a first for Lucy and it took her a lot of time and energy prior to the workshop to reduce the beautifully colourful striped sugar cane I’d bought on Ridley Road market in Dalston to a manageable state for making paper. I leant about making formation aid from okra to help the fibres disperse in water (and this seemed an apt combination with sugarcane) and the importance of the Hollander Beater to grind apart rather than cut the plant fibres. It was a fascinating and inspiring morning and I have now acquired a big box of bagasse fibre with which to continue my experiments.
