Danah Ringel Reflection

 I had so much fun altering my book. I chose to re-deign my Financial Management textbook. This was one of my least favorite classes at Bryant and I had no problem destroying this book. The very first thing I did to alter my book was soaking it in water. This made the book very heavy and I actually had to squeeze the book to get rid of the excess water. After soaking my book, I decided I wanted to burn some of the pages too. I learned that if you’re going to burn a book you should probably do that before soaking the book in water. I didn’t think my book was going to take as long to dry as it did. As a result, I ripped out a lot of pages to not only make it dry faster, but also make it lighter. I tried to do as many of the things on the list as possible. Some of the art actions I completed included puncture, rip, cut, fold, tear, tweeze, stamp, burn, soak, spray, and clip.  My process involved looking at the list of words we created in class and seeing how I could alter my book accordingly. For example, I cut a hollow box inside my book in order to represent the “nothing” I learned in Finance. In cutting the pages, I learned it was a lot easier to cut my book when it was wet as opposed to it being dry. However, the pages tended to rip easier when they were wet. I had learned in Creativity in the Arts to experiment using multiple different mediums and to step out of my comfort zone when it comes to art. I had fun letting my imagination run wild completing this book and I loved the end result. It was almost unrecognizable. Ordinarily, I prefer the end result over the process. In completing this assignment, I had more fun during the process. I learned that it can be very therapeutic to destroy a textbook for a course that you hated!   

Paper making originated in China around A.D. 105. Cai Lun had “initiated the idea of making paper from the bark of trees, hemp, old rags, and fishing nets” (Common Bond, p.7). “An accurate definition might describe paper as a composite of water and pulverized cellulose fragments screened through a sieve and dried into a flat film” (Common Bond, p.9). Before the invention of paper, many different types of surfaces were used over the centuries. These included woven cloth, flattened metal sheets, peeled tree bark, stone, cured animal skins, dried animal bones, seashells, and shards of pottery. In Egypt, papyrus was used heavily in the making of recording surfaces. Strips of the marsh reed, measuring nearly 20 feet tall, were sliced, cut, and dried and placed in two layers. These layers were moistened, flattened under pressure, and smoothed into sheets that were then pasted together and rolled up into compact rolls. The Chinese made their paper a little bit differently. Materials such as frayed rope, cloth scraps, hemp, and fishnets were washed, soaked and beaten to a pulp with a wooden mallet. The ingredients were then placed in a vat of pure water and stirred. Next, a scoop of the slurry was poured over a screen of woven cloth that had been suspended between a brace of poles. Excess liquid was drained and the newly formed paper was left to dry. The interlocking fibers from the cellulose found in plants is left behind and this is what creates the paper. Essentially what the Chinese discovered was the process of hydrogen bonding, or the process of molecular cohesion. Over the coming years, paper making has taken on many techniques as well as utilized an array of different ingredients. However, the fundamentals of the process still remain the same till this day: clean water, cellulose fiber, and a screen mold.  

   

I find it interesting that paper is able to shape a culture as well as a way of life. Many different surfaces were used before the paper we know and use today. Hieroglyphics and other characters and symbols were written upon surfaces including walls of caves, wood, metal, stone, leaves, barks, bamboo, cloths, ceramics, papyrus and parchment. Tools such as knives, sticks, and chisels were used to etch symbols into these surfaces. The camel hair brush revolutionized the way symbols and other written characters were transcribed on to surfaces. This allowed for ink to be easily painted onto a surface. The animal hair brush was the instrument of choice when paper arrived. I found it interesting when reading Chinese, the characters are read from top to bottom vertically as opposed to left to right horizontally. Chinese characters were written on narrow strips of bamboo fastened together with pieces of twine. These restrictions resulted in the characters being written and read from top to bottom. Paper has become an essential in everyday lives. “The low cost of paper and flexibility of paper made it ideally suited to the making of fans, umbrellas, lanterns, and kites” (Common Bond, p.12). Paper has also made great strides in personal hygiene with the creation of disposable toilet paper. Paper was even used to make light summer clothes as well as body armor for warriors. At funerals, the bereaved would take representations of horses, camels, servants, armor, and fake money made out of cotton-paper and place it alongside the corpse. Both the corpse and the paper figures would be burned together. Lastly, paper was used in the wrapping of packages as well as building and binding. When you really take the time to think about it, paper is a product taken for granted in our society. It is essential to everyday life and it’s hard to think of a world without it.