Renewal: fabric scraps turned paper
renewal: fabric scraps turned paper
The beauty of working with materials that come from nature, is just that: they’re natural, they follow the same rhythms of that of the natural world – they cycle through and become renewed. Plants, animals, minerals, elements, all cycle through various systems of this Earth, never a beginning and never an end. That’s the basis of the natural world: forever changing, always cycling – death and renewal. When Herderin works with natural fibers, there’s an understanding that its current iteration won’t be its last. And we love to see the many ways Herderin is reborn again – whether it’s remade into something new, something useful, something beautiful, something artistic.
Hannah Lipski (she/they) is an anticapitalist artist currently calling Eureka in Humboldt County, the unceded territory of the Wiyot tribe, home. She prioritizes upcycling materials and working with non-native plants to create paper, a medium for her other art practices; primarily mixed media collages that also incorporate fabric, photographs, her own handmade or friend-made botanical, fungal and earth inks/paints and moon blood. Hannah currently researches and embodies radical art making, ethnoecology and spiritual psychology at university and beyond the institution.
While studying and experimenting with painting in college, she began looking beyond the physical process of painting and toward the materials themselves she was working with: acrylic and oil paint, turpentine, bought canvas – and realized how antithetical to her ethics it was to not know the origins of the materials she was in relationship with; and further, the materials were clearly toxic, just by their fumes which in the short term manifest headaches and skin rashes and in the long term increase the risk of cancer.
It was just expected to use these items in class, never a discussion on their origins and alternatives. Simultaneously Hannah was exploring compost-making and understanding that waste just doesn’t go “away.” In a world of so much waste, juxtaposed by a world, an innate pull toward creation, where is the balance between making and wasting? A contemplation for anyone who cares about Earth and human health while also wanting to express themselves through artistic forms.
“I feel like the land is an extension of us. I want to protect the land, and not use things, as best as I can, that are polluting or harming the health of myself and others,” explains Hannah, as they tell us about their journey toward using natural and upcycled materials, a journey that eventually leads her to us. “I rarely buy anything besides food, in protest to overconsumption and in adherence with the BDS movement. When I do, I buy from local artisans, also making their way by creating or resisting empire, be it flower essences from fae comrades, radical books from indie bookshops, and most recently a tin whistle from the family-owned Irish goods shop in town. There’s a quote from Dean Spade’s most recent book, How to Love in a Fucked Up World: ‘How you do anything, is how you do everything.’” Let that absorb. “I believe the energy of the materials you use translates into your art practice. When I’m painting, collaging or quilting, I’m often wanting to express a reverence for Earth. I want to use materials that also hold this message.”
Hannah found papermaking by way of wanting to create the medium for which they paint on. An old housemate had a friend Mikeal, who had worked at Magnolia Editions in Oakland, CA – a fine art print studio making paper, tiles, and providing studio space, while also being a small publication house. Hannah was introduced to Mikeal and began a work-trade relationship to learn the process of making paper. Together, they fixed up an old Hollander beater from an ex-pulp mill in Humboldt County and started exploring all the plant materials that can be turned into paper, centering on non-native species including European beach grass, pampas grass, and eucalyptus; and also, plant-based fabric scraps.
It was here that Hannah reached out to Herderin. She had learned of Herderin through a good friend Chrys, who had gifted them a Herderin skirt. “I appreciated the emphasis on regenerative farming and community-sourced material, along with creating aesthetically beautiful, unique pieces. I resonated with Herderin’s quality, art direction, and presentation.”
They picked up fabric scraps from Alix Vasquez’s home, also the current Herderin studio space, in San Rafael and was immediately enamored by the fabric. Hannah recalls placing the wool in their hands: “It had speckles of brown, contrasted against its natural white color. The result of the paper from the wool scraps reminds me of a speckled spring egg. Mikeal was apprehensive about using wool, but there was ease in using the material. The paper turned out strong and beautiful. You can feel the quality and integrity of the material when working with it. It’s what drew me in in the first place. My friend Kevin showed me how to bind paper for crafting books, so I bound the Herderin paper with organic linen from Chrys to weave the paper together. What an incredible community spiral of sharing and creating. I feel grateful to translate plants into so many precious forms. My soul is singing to paint spring flowers and other spring spirits into the pages in the coming days.”
Hannah sees Herderin as falling into the camp of art as social practice, and resonates deeply with this sentiment; it’s how they would also describe their own practice. It’s so much more than creating – it’s community, it's an expression of values, a statement, an intimate personal exploration. From the beginning of our conversation, Hannah shares that they’re in a process of unlearning from a goal-oriented art practice toward a process-oriented art practice. It's one of many ways she’s detaching from the dominant capitalist culture that pervades America – away from production and towards intentional creation.
“I also want to be transparent about how I’m surviving in a capitalist society. It feels important to say this. I’m white and have privilege because of that. I have disability income, although not much, Medi-Cal, use food stamps, and live in a work-trade situation for housing. I have the time, maybe more than others, to be making paper. On an individual level, I want to be a ‘conscious consumer’.” She says with dubious quotation marks. “But I don’t want to police other people for whatever they’re going through and where they are on the spectrum of divesting from the Amazons and Walmarts of the world. I do believe we need to start talking more about how we make time to do the things that aren’t convenient, and not just going to the store to buy something quickly.”
Along with exploring natural textile scraps, she’s also exploring one particular non-native species that is locally found just west of her: European beach grass, or Ammophila arenaria. Through volunteering with Friends of the Dunes, they remove the grass so the native dune plants can revive. “European Beach grass is still a plant. I can honor their life and turn them into something meaningful, useful, and practical. When I’m foraging, when I’m encountering a being in front of me, I like to offer something in return before harvesting, usually something that won’t leave a physical mark such as a little water, song or prayer but sometimes a waft of smoke from a mugwort wand I made from my own cultivated Artemisia douglasiana patch, or a few tobacco leaves gifted from a friend. I want to acknowledge that I’m taking a life; it’s a big deal. I want to recognize that they too are an autonomous being with their own life experience, history, and dreams. Plants are way older than us, and it's fascinating, they are our elders,” Hannah shares.
There’s a Robin Wall Kimmerer quote that she recites near the end of our call: ‘That, I think, is the power of ceremony: it marries the mundane to the sacred. The water turns to wine, the coffee to a prayer. The material and the spiritual mingle like grounds mingled with humus, transformed like steam rising from a mug into the morning mist.’
And this is what Hannah is doing, through foraging and upcycling natural textiles. She is reminding us that everything is sacred, anything of material and artistic form is also a spiritual offering to our own healing, to the world.
