Helmut Julius Becker

My involvement in handmaking paper and linen/fibre flax research was awakened through visits in 1967 with two pioneers, hand papermaker Douglass Howell and multimedia artist Michael Ponce de Leon, both in New York. Howell designed and built his own stainless steel and phosphor bronze hollander paper beaters, presses and tools for hand papermaking. For a time, over a half century of research in handmaking paper, he was the only artist/craftsman active in this field in all North America. Ponce de Leon collaborated with Howell in experimentation on three-dimensional handmade sculptural prints and paper casts. He also pioneered with the Brand brothers in Manhattan to build the first machined and welded printing presses for artists anywhere. Earlier presses were made of cast iron.

I realized that handmaking paper would open to me new worlds in artistic creativity, but I would need superior tools and equipment (deckle moulds, paper beaters, presses). I would also have to tackle at the source the acquisition of excellent artist's materials, even growing and processing my own fibre flax, and getting high-quality pigments, even by grinding them myself from raw materials. Commercial producers have increasingly turned to inferior, cheaper raw materials and technologies that impair permanence. A paper by researcher H. Gluck, ''The Impermanence of Paintings in Relation to Artist’s Materials'' (J. Royal Soc. of Arts, April 1964) clearly attests to this, and is as true today as then. To ensure permanence, I may, for example, hand-grind a semi-precious stone, lapis lazuli, to make true ultramarine blue.

In consequence of my visits with Howell and Ponce de Leon, and with the help of a Canada Council grant, I designed and built in 1970 my own large electro-hydraulic press which I have used for experiments in relief/intaglio/litho with handmade paper. Subsequently, I have also designed and manufactured for customers some stainless steel ''Mississauga'' hollander paper beaters (1- and 5-pound capacity), the latest for a party in Adelaide, Australia.

Through the inspiration of Douglass Howell, who experimented with fibre flax and linen, I have steadfastly conducted further research into fibre flax and linen for hand papermaking. Recycled rags of linen and hemp (used cloth, canvas, rope, etc.) were key raw materials in Occidental hand papermaking through most of the last millennium. Earlier in the Orient, and to this day, a much greater diversity of plants were employed, e.g., at high altitudes the plants Daphne and bamboo; at medium altitudes, paper mulberry and, for the famous Chinese hsüan chih paper, blue sandal wood (Pteroceltis tartarinowii,); and at low altitudes, rice straw and hemp. Most of these plants, excepting hemp, were not available in the Western world.

Through the Moorish invasions, the technology of hand papermaking entered Europe around 1000 A.D. through Spain, around a millennium after its invention by the Chinese in 105 A.D. The qualities of many extant early handmade papers are exceptional for strength, permanence and simple tactile beauty. More research is needed on the exact nature of the early handmade papers of the Middle East in the period 750 to 1000 A.D, as well as on early European handmade papers. Several significant studies have recently been made by Aliza Thomas of the Netherlands on early Middle Eastern handmade papers and by Timothy Barrett on, ''Early European Papers, Contemporary Conservation Papers.'' To unlock the secrets of the past is not always easy. Another notable scholar is Victoria Rabal I Marola in Capellades in Spain. Her findings on the design and function of medieval stampers, such as those in the Capellades Paper Museum are particularly valuable. I have conferred with all three researchers regarding subtleties involved in determining how the high quality and permanence of earlier handmade papers was achieved. All three have stimulated ideas for further research.

I have made studies by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) of suitable plant fibres for handmaking paper, most importantly, of flax and hemp. A substantial part of my research and creative artwork in the past twenty five years has involved growing experimental plots of different varieties of fibre and seed flax at the field station of the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Western Ontario. The flax plants were hand-pulled. The plants, stripped of seed clusters, were then retted in several ways: on the field by dew, on the field under snow, in a stream, in a clay-bottom pond, and in a tank.These different techniques yield a palette of earth colors which I have used to advantage in my creation of artworks from handmade paper.

Two documentary films have been made about my work with paper and flax:
1. ''Paper,'' a colour film by Gesture Films, directed by John Gould, cinematography by John Griffin, on the handmaking of paper by Helmut Becker, with drawings on such paper by John Gould. This film was shown on the C.B.C. television program ''Front Row Centre'' on February 25, 1978. It is distributed by Viking Films, Toronto.
2. ''From a Field of Flax,'' a colour film by TV Ontario, directed by Joan Reed-Olsen, on my growing and processing of flax and my making of paper and handmade-paper artworks, shown on TV Ontario’s program ''Hands Over Time,'' October 31, 1990.

Recently, in 1994, I joined a group who, for the first time in half a century in North America, legally grew, for experimental purposes, ''industrial'' (low THC) hemp. The group includes Geof Kime, Joe Strobel, Hempline Ltd., and thirteen Tillsonburg farmers. My part in this pilot project involved experimental retting of industrial hemp and processing of the fibre into handmade paper.

I am fascinated not only by the potential of fibre flax and hemp for application in handmade paper and paper artworks, but also by the history and technology of these fibres from earliest times. I am investigating hand beating of plant fibres and the use of stampers in both East and West in earlier times and whereever still practiced today, as in China and Japan. I am continuing work on natural retting in which microorganisms in the presence of water remove most non-cellulosic matter from plant material, without added chemicals. If chemicals were needed then, as Yasuichi Kubota and the late Ashiro Abbe have done in Japan or as Chinese hand papermakers in Anhui do, I would use the least amount of soda ash to do the job.

When I visited Kubota, in Shimane Perfecture in Japan, on a Canada Council travel grant in 1983, he helped me handmake some green ''sekishu hanshi kozo'' paper. Inner bark of kozo saplings harvested from neighboring mountain sides was subjected to gentle physical and chemical processing, retaining the mildly poisonous green pigment which repels attack by bookworms. Today, following Kubota’s rule of thumb, I prefer to process fibres using the weakest alkaline solution that will do the job of removing non-cellulosic matter. Alternately, if microscopic organisms in the retting process have already effectively accomplished the extraction, no further chemical or thermal treatment is necessary. The greater the chemical and physical abuse that plant fibres are subjected to, the more impermanent the handmade paper will be.

In China, the best fibre for the highest quality of handmade hsüan chih paper is sun-bleached on rocky southern slopes for 6-12 months. In my own investigations, I have successfully sun-bleached fibre flax and hemp over snow in the winter. An exciting aspect of my work is the use of ''green'' (immature)fibre flax which yields finer fibres, paler and in less need of bleaching, and naturally lower in non-cellulosics.

Inspired by images of sunlight, water, earth, trees and stone-age dwellings, I created in the early 1980’s a series of multi-media sculptural installations largely constructed in handmade paper. This subsequently led to a variety of other handmade paper creations. These are documented in, ''A Harvest of Light, Paperworks of Helmut Becker,'' by Susan Warner Keene, Ontario Craft Magazine, Spring 1984 (available on microfilm from Micromedia Limited, 20 Victoria Street, Toronto, Ontario M5C 2N8; tel 416/362-5211)

Having grown up in sparsely treed regions of the Canadian prairies, trees retain a special fascination for me. Tree materials are incorporated in many of my handmade paper art works. Wood, saplings, inner bark and leaves, worked in various ways, take on a new life. Through sculpting or fire, primordial and timeless forms and spaces are evoked.

I am deeply concerned about thesurvival of treed regions before the onslaught of man. In a recent series of my artworks called ''Tree Skins,'' burnt-over, sculpted tree stumps were sprayed with fibre-flax pulp which shrink-dried upon them. ''Tree Skins'' creates a spiritual memory of a forest past. This work was exhibited in the international exhibition, ''Paper and Nature,'' at the 4th International Biennial of Paper Art, Düren, Germany, 1992.

In 1995-96, my large sculpture of handmade coloured fibre-flax paper /wood sculpture, ''Horseshoe Round Tower and Three Gateways'' was exhibited in Copenhagen at the International Handmade Paper Exhibition, 'Paper path, future communication'.

Conduct professional flax/hemp workshops; e.g.:
- Paper Making with Flax, Helmut Becker, Peninsular Art School, Fish Creek, Wisconsin, Sept. 22nd-26th, 1997
- Hemp Processing and Handmaking Hemp Paper, The Future of Hemp in BC Conference, Kamloops, B.C. , November 8-9, 1997
- Flax Festival, Flax Papermaking, Center for Book & Paper Arts, Columbia College, Chicago, June 17-29, 1998
- Flax Festival, Seastone Paper Studio, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, July 12th-17th, 1999
- Processing Industrial Hemp for Hand Papermaking, Demonstration, Friends of Dard Hunter Chicago Conference, November 11th, 1999
- Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show, Woodstock, Handmaking Flax and Hemp Paper, demonstration, Sept. 11 & 12, 2001