In the first week, we discussed about tools we want to explore.
So many ideas I can not focus: clay culpting, paper making, plastic melting.
But my decision made to paper making. I once tried paper making technic back in 2019, it was my first time making paper out of used paper from a church in Toraja, Sulawesi. I haven’t gotten time to explore any further since then, and I think this is the right time to do some experiments using paper making.
The idea was collecting yesterday newspaper in the tube stations or randomly picking on the bus. I haven’t thought about what to make and what I can do with it. On the way home, I was thinking about recreating the newspaper headlines using analog technic: handmade paper and letterpress. So the ideas continued to the print trial and error.
I was trying to print using inkjet printer, but it’s easy and simple. Then I look for something more challenging: printing the words using letterpress. Since I have never used the letterpress before, it quite difficult for me to achieve a full paragraph. When I tried to use more whitespace (not using any letter), it turned out more challenging than I thought before, because I need to measure the empty spaces and count how many picas exactly to close a single line. It took me 3 hours to set the fonts into the letterpress bed, and another 3 hours to set up the roller and cleaning up everything.
It was exhausting. I think I trapped myself. Haha.