On Tuesday, September 6, 2022, the Jacob Jürgensen Paper Workshop was opened by Marit Ernst with a theoretical part on the history of paper.
You might think that the history of paper started in Egypt, where the ancient Egyptians created papyrus and parchment. However, the real beginning of paper comes from China. From there, the Chinese exported the newly invented creation all over the world. Many countries have so many different standards regarding paper properties. In Asia, for example, a pure white paper is considered particularly valuable.
After the theory, however, it was finally time for the four trainees to get down to practical work and we were allowed to enter the paper fray in order to independently follow the process through to the finished paper.
The path to the right paper turned out to be more demanding and, above all, wetter than expected and was a lot of fun. First we made recycled paper and we quickly found out that the different products softened differently.
The difficulty also lay in figuring out in what proportions the different additives had to be mixed together. No further additives are added to the paper that is allowed to call itself “recycled”. Close to the end we were allowed to try our hand at bright white recycled paper.
At the end of the day after a lot of sifting, scooping, drying and smoothing, we were all proud to have produced our own souvenir.