At Dieu Donné, artists usually work wet-into-wet and paint with pigmented paper pulp onto the surface of a base sheet or directly onto the felt. Dieu Donné prepares pulp paint with “overbeaten” linen pulp, or pulp beaten for a long time, so that it flows with a consistency similar to pudding. Besides varying the amount of time pulp is beaten to achieve different viscosities, additives such as formation aid or methyl cellulose may also be added to change the flow and consistency. Either archival aqueous dispersed pigment or dry artists quality pigment are used to color pulp. The pigmented pulp can be poured directly using ladles or spoons to draw freehand or squirt from plastic squirt bottles. The painting process involves applying pigmented pulp onto a base sheet which acts like a canvas; but after the pulp is pressed and dried, the layers become permanently bonded, and the sheet becomes a unified painting. Artists can paint outside of the standard rectangular base sheet to create freeform compositions. The artist can further the concept of working wet-into-wet by drawing into pools of colored pulp, which float in a watery state inside a “deckle box,” a papermaking mould with removable high walls. Painting into pools of liquid pulp, artists can marble colors and use waves of pulp to compose works.
“During my residency, I fell in love with papermaking and pulp painting, specifically. There are freedoms inherent in this medium that I had never encountered—there is an unusual ability to make marks and forms with intense fluidity. I love the ways in which pulp can be used with various agents to become transparent, and also opaque, and can retain a sense of speed . . . Soon, I was finding immense pleasure in moving off of the page... I was thinking of the paper as shaped canvases.”
“I followed an intuitive process, allowing the materials to inform the work made. I enjoy exploring new, unexpected ways of using materials, which is why I was drawn to pulp painting, marbling, and collaging freshly pulled sheets. All of these techniques are usually associated with surface, but in this body of work each gesture is structurally embedded in the form.”
By using a “deckle box,” which acts as both a vat and a papermaking mould with high walls, artists can further the concept of working wet-into-wet by actually drawing into pools of colored pulp in the deckle box.
Nicole Eisenman used a direct pulp painting process, working wet into wet to make her expressive and humorous pulp painting “posters.” In this piece and others, Eisenmann works with the flow of water and uses its movement to her advantage.
Published by Dieu Donné and Anton Kern Gallery.
Courtesy of Dieu Donné Papermill, NY.
Eddie Martinez, Untitled,2013.
Collaborator: Amy Jacobs.
Eddie Martinez used a palette of brilliant colors of linen pulps with added methylcellulose glue that he applied with squirt bottles onto cotton base sheets. Martinez then used brushes, spoons, and his fingers to paint the gestural forms into the abstracted characters, objects, and totems that are thematic to his work.
Varied edition of 25, number DD 2/2.
Courtesy of Dieu Donné Papermill, NY.
Richard Tuttle,Hiddenness,1987.
Collaborator: Paul Wong.
Multiple printers and paper collaborators worked on Richard Tuttle’s Hiddenness book for the Whitney Library Fellows collaboration that illustrated Mei-mei Berssenbrugge’s poetry. As a collaborator, Paul Wong of Dieu Donné worked with Richard Tuttle to edition pulp painted “drips” that appeared to be spontaneously painted each time.
Artist-designed paper produced at Dieu Donné. Published by Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.Printed by Peter Kruty, Judith Solodkin, and Cinda Sparling (Solo Press, NY). Silkscreen by Larry B. Wright. Bound by George and Catherine Wieck.
Edition of 120: PP.
Paul Wong,The Eclipse of the Moon,1998.
Not only a talented Dieu Donné collaborator but also an artist in his own right, Paul Wong combined pulp painting with stenciling to create images of the moon cycle on the trifold cover of his book.
The book, The Eclipse of the Moon, contains Wong’s Xerox transferred images on handmade paper that accompany both the original Chinese and English translation of the poem.
Published by Kuboaa Press, New York.Letterpress printed and designed by Russell Maret. Type design by Berthold Wolpe.Bound by Carolyn Chadwick.
Collaborators: Susan Gosin, Amy Jacobs, and Tatiana Ginsberg.
Eliza Kentridge combines the spontaneity of pulp painting with other techniques, such as collage and sewing, to create dimensional books that illuminate her poetry. She created each collage in the book Selected Signs from found materials, such as her teabags.
Published by Dieu Donné Press, Inc.
Letterpress and images printed by Peter Kruty and Sayre Gaydos. Bound by Beth Sheehan (Small Editions).
Collaborators and Designers: Susan Gosin of Dieu Donné, Maricruz Bilbao, and Jessica Strand.
Poems/Drawings of Mark Strand grew out of the conversations that Mark Strand and Susan Gosin had over many years while working together in the Dieu Donné papermaking studio as he created his exquisite papers for his collages. An example is included in each copy of the book along with letterpress-printed versions of fourteen of Strand’s pen and ink drawings. Strand often spoke of his friends’ poetry and how their work meant so much to him. His own poems and corresponding tributes were chosen for this edition by nine of his treasured friends and poets after his death in 2014.
Printed by Sayre Gaydos and Peter Kruty. Bound by Beth Sheehan (Small Editions).
