Early in December I was inspired to make paper out of a plant fiber that I could harvest on my own, and what better resource than a spreading introduced grass, free for the taking, and abundant! I live in the San Francisco Bay Area where jubata grass (Cortaderia jubata) is a serious problem because it grows readily and spreads easily. It's another classic example of introducing a species without regard for the consequences to local ecosystems. C. jubata is one of two so named pampas grasses introduced to California, the other is C. selloana, and as it turns out, jubata thrives our coastal climate.

Since I wanted a steady supply of plant fiber to experiment with, this grass is a perfect candidate. It's difficult to remove entirely, but I'm hoping to go harvest more with my papermaking friends. Perhaps we can raise the visibility of this problem, and the larger one of planting the wrong plants and disrupting entire ecosystems.

The photo above shows an empty lot in Moss Beach where my brother and I harvested the jubata. We quickly harvested both the seed plumes and the long slender leaves (wearing gloves because the leaves are extremely rough and will cut bare skin). I bagged the seed plumes carefully, so as not to spread the seeds. My intention was to process each separately into paper for my printmaking artwork. 

This photo shows the cooked leaf fiber after 3 hours of cooking with soda ash, then extensive rinsing. I processed the cooked fiber with my commercial immersion blender, and after several minutes I had a homogenous suspension that I used to make the paper. I made one small sheet with pure jubata fiber, then mixed it with unbleached abaca so that it would be useful for printmaking. The pure jubata paper would likely be too rough for the results I wanted (although if it was processed in a hollander type beater, you could probably get a smoother fiber). 

This photo below shows a mixed sheet made with abaca and jubata fiber.

I made several sheets for a printing project, and I had some cooked material left to freeze, plus some cut leaves to dry for processing later.

Next steps will be to test it by printing a wood cut I'm working on for a print challenge.

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