Seed Paper Project (with help from the kids)

I've had a couple reincarnations as and artist, one of them was as a paper maker. However one thing that I have always carried with me, through out my incarnations, is my Prairie practicality. Whatever I have, I've got to use up and not waste (hold that thought).

Last year I found this book, by Kerri Smith in San Francisco. I was so excited when I found it in the store, since earlier that day I had just been explaining to my husband how I was interested in Guerilla Art. After I calmed his fears about having to bail me out of jail for tagging, we talked at great length about how Guerilla Art (a random act of kindness, if you will) can effect a community.

I love the idea of making art for no other reason than to make the world a more interesting place. I found myself particularly drawn to the Seed Bombs but we modified it into "SEED PAPER"  (here is where the need to use up materials comes in).

We picked a sunny day, got out some buckets  filled them with water. Then we went to town, ripped up paper, (the kids favourite part) threw it in a blender and made some pulp. I used left over cotton fibers and some abbacca but mostly we used paper from our recycling. It was also a good excuse to clean out some storage space. I also used a few of my old prints from my printmaking days. When I said I've had a couple of reincarnations I wasn't kidding and did I really need 10 additions of each print? This project was particularly exciting for me because I not only did I uses up left over materials  I also freed up some space for myself. YES!

Then came the wet part. We pulled sheets of paper (got soaked) with our screens (got soaked), squished the water out (got soaked) and sprinkled our seeds in the paper. Then we sandwiched the seeds between sheets of paper (which wasn't really part of the wet process but we were already soaked). We used sunflower seeds, poppies, hollyhocks, cone flowers anything that was perennial.

We hung the sheet of paper on our patio doors and a few of them we placed dried maple leave on top.

Neko, our girl cat hung out to supervise and to soak in all the sun!

After a day or so the paper had dried on the windows and it was time to pull them off ...

And reap our rewards! Stack O' Paper!

We attached a little note inviting people to join our forces and to become  "GUERILLA GARDENERS"


For mission details or to figure out what to do if one of these sheets surfaces in your vicinity visit:

http://redspottedpatch.blogspot.com/2010/05/guerrillas-in-our-midst.html

Happy gardening in your yard or in an urban area that needs some green love!