Skip to main content

It's been a while but I just have to share this ...... Bali paper making


Whilst on a holiday in Bali last week I began to wonder if anyone there did paper making.  




After a lot of research I came up with only one place, Saraswati Papers.   It was started by an Australian, Kali Sali back in 1995 when she realized how much Bali was struggling with an ever growing pollution problem caused by a growing and modernizing society.  

Her goal is to reduce the amount of waste so her company collects and recycles papers from hotels, schools, businesses and homes.



 





As they don't use any bleaches or chemicals to whiten the finished papers the collected papers are then  cut so as to keep all the plain white pieces that haven't been printed on to use on their own and those with black and coloured printing are put together for a different type of paper.






The papers are boiled overnight in a large pot. 

I loved the Hindu blessing on the side of the stove.















Before being put into a  Hollander ) a large beater for paper pulp) to beat the pulp and the water together.




















The pulp is then ladled out and placed into a trough and mixed with more water.













The frame is scooped through the water until a fine layer of the paper clings to the mesh.
















The frame is then placed onto a board and the water from the sheet is squeezed out before the frame is lifted and the paper stays on the  boards.













This is repeated until the boards are full and then they're put out into the sun to dry.

















When dry the paper is pulled off the board and stacked ready for using.









Clean white paper.


The  Saraswati Papers centre is run by Balinese women from the villages as a way of teaching them paper making skills and giving them an income.

All their papers are 100%post consumer papers and is not only helping the local communities but also the environment as well.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Lotus symbol in Korean culture .....

In traditional Korean Hanji art you can see many different designs of plants, animals, letters and insects. I'm sure you've wondered what they all symbolise as they are repeated so often and in many different ways.  In this post I just want to take a brief look at the lotus plant and what it symbolises for the Korean people. I've used this design on a few articles but I never really knew the full meaning of what it represented until I started doing some research for my book.  Even though many of us aren't Korean we can still use these designs and in so doing, translate a deeper meaning to our articles. Here are a just a few of my favourites from the easiest to the more difficult to cut out.                         The lotus flower symbolises creation, birth, liveability and reproduction and therefore it's one of the most  important symbols in both Korean culture and its traditional religions. In both Confucianism and Buddhism

The Buddhist symbol, Hanji & Korean culture ....

When selecting designs for my Hanji pieces I tend to make stylistic choices as to what will look best on each piece but the Korean designs all have very deep symbolic meanings.  None more than the Buddhist swastika (manja) design. ‘Manja’ (만, Man is “卍” and 만자, Manja literally means “letter Man”) is also called Srivatsalksana in Sanskrit.  It is one of the thirty-two (32) marks of excellence of the Buddha and is said to exist on his hands, feet, hair and waist.                         For those of us in the West this is often confused with the German Nazi swastika symbol but in fact it's been  around for about three thousand years.  The swastika is an equilateral cross with arms bent at right angles and all in the same direction, usually to the right, or clockwise. It's a symbol of prosperity and good fortune and it originally represented the revolving sun, fire, or life. The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit swastika which means, "conducive to well

Online Hanji paper store, in English .....

I'm really pleased to be able to share with you this website where you can order a variety of Hanji papers from Korea and it's all in English !!!  The store is based in Daejon, Korea.   HAMINBRIDGE ( Thehanji ) was established by Moonyang Park in 1983. It's a family owned 2nd generation  business and they have a factory in Junju.  They also have a factory in China where some of the paper is made. The website is at www. thehanji.com and it provides a selection of specialty Hanji paper (Korean paper) and products.   I ordered some papers from them recently  to see what it was like and they were extremely efficient in dealing with  the order and it was here in the UAE within 5 days so I was really impressed. The prices were good and they even have some on special, the paper is beautiful and the ease of ordering was amazing.   They do sell rolls of paper, traditional papers and lanterns but overall I did think the range was a bit limited for what I wa