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Date: 11/1/2022
NORTHAMPTON – The process of making paper is probably elusive to a lot of people, but one local scientist in Florence is making a name for herself by creating fine artisanal paper out of local plants.
Donna Lilborn, a horticulturist turned landscape architect, has spent the last 10 years making different types of paper out of locally foraged sources, with an emphasis on using agricultural byproducts and invasive plants. The approach creates a sense of awareness about the role invasive plants play in our environment while also providing another perspective on how people view them aside from the typical negative connotations.
“Most of the paper that we use today is made from trees, but any paper that has been used in antiquity was made from tropical plants, not so much from temperate plants,” said Lilborn. “What I’m trying to do is make white, smooth paper out of sub-optimal plants.”
For Lilborn, there is an ecological principal of wanting to utilize plant material that is oftentimes underutilized. “It’s all part of ecological living is to use things efficiently so you’re not producing more stuff than you need,” said Lilborn. “We have this whole thing where there’s these [invasive] plants that are coming in eating up our ecological niches-which they are on a certain human scale-but they’re also here, so what can we do with them.”
Since 2012, Lilborn has been making refined paper as a hobby as well as for local artists using various plants like Japanese knotweed, corn husks, daylily, Siberian iris and more recently, cannabis plants.
Cannabis plants, according to Lilborn, are historically major fiber plants of the world, and still are. Their denuded stems can be used to make paper from bark, which leads to some of the best paper in the
world.
“This crop is interesting to me because people grow it in their backyards,” said Lilborn. “We have a law now where people can grow six plants in their backyard, and they can be very large.”
The process of making paper is a complicated one that can take years to master, but with her background, Lilborn has turned this hobby into an interesting niche using a scientific lens that other papermakers may lack. Her skill came from years of practice and major help from Sheryl Jaffe, one of the region’s foremost papermakers.
Generally speaking, Lilborn spends time in her basement studio, with equipment she built, extracting the fiber from the plants and creating chemically bonded paper using an ancient hand process with many steps. She told Reminder Publishing that, although she has been making paper for 10 years, she has probably spent about eight of those years trying to perfect the chemistry of it.
“If you take a piece of paper, it’s a special thing,” said Lilborn. “It’s more than the sum of its parts because it’s actually chemically-bonded, not just physically bonded.”
“There’s a lot of things you can press in a press that may look like paper,” Lilborn continues, “but if it doesn’t have that chemical bond, then it’s not actually paper.”
Lilborn’s meticulous focus on the minutiae of paper’s scientific properties has turned her hobby into an important resource for local artists and small press printers, mainly due to the paper’s long-lasting, and versatile qualities.
“This hobby is my way of trying to be more in the community,” said Lilborn, who described herself as a solitary person. “Artists typically are the people who mainly want to see my paper.”
To showcase some of the paper used for art, Lilborn has a website called “White Leaf,” which also functions as a portfolio of some of her favorite paper she has made. Other times, a calligrapher may want some paper, or Lilborn will make paper for thank-you notes for someone’s wedding.
And while most papermakers buy fiber already prepared, Lilborn thinks it’s better to use local plants and make the paper from scratch.
As a result, it has taken longer for Lilborn to master the craft, but the process has been worthwhile because now she can properly guide artists with little background in chemistry with picking the right kind of paper. In using her background, Lilborn has been able to create paper that can last for centuries.
“It took me a really long time to figure out what people thought they were saying to sort of re-translate that into scientific terms,” said Lilborn. “Artists work very hard, so you don’t want to give them deteriorating paper.”
Lilborn typically hunts for plants in the summer, either through her own exploration, or by asking around on social media and throughout the neighborhood. She will then spend most of her time in the winter making the paper, although now she is dealing with an injured arm, so it may be months before she produces any more.
Nowadays, however, she keeps a large inventory of different paper she has created in case someone needs some. “Artists are coming to me more now than ever, so I’m trying to show them what I have,” said Lilborn.
For now, Lilborn has many sizes, thicknesses and fiber options on hand, with many combinations for commission. People can visit the White Leaf website to get an idea of what Lilborn offers: https://www.whiteleafpaper.com/home.
“Making paper is like making tomato sauce,” said Lilborn. “People already know what goes in it, but every time you make it, it’s different. It’s all about the ingredients and how you cook it.”