So, yeah, I spoke too soon. I definitely got the wrong kind of paper for my project.
A few weeks ago, I looked online for awhile, but became discouraged by the pricing of all plantable seed paper I could find. I gave up at that point, frustrated. A couple of days later, my girlfriend surprised me by telling me that she had ordered me 100 sheets online while at her parents' house. When they arrived, I found that the reason she had found some cheap paper was because it wasn't plantable. There were some petals and floral fragments embedded in the paper, but burying it would not result in any kind of growth; they were intended for use as invitations or elegant stationary, not plantable poems.
So I have a couple of options. I can use household materials for the inner-pages as well as the covers, as I originally intended. Or, I can order enough plantable seed paper to make a couple copies rather than a dozen, but I don't know that I will be able to receive them in time to meet the deadline, nor do I necessarily want to spend much money on this project.
Argh. It wasn't the greatest week; this fiasco coupled with a death in the family. It was a great-aunt, not my immediate family, but it still puts a damper on an already dreary atmosphere.
I'm at a loss, so somebody give me a suggestion.
R
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3 comments:
Dear Rick, don't sweat it. It was a cool idea and maybe you'll figure it out for another book. But I'd suggest for this one, just printing it on regular printer paper, calling it RADISH, like you were going to, and it will be cool just like that. It's enough to contend with just getting all the pages together in the right order to read like a book and then binding them all. I'm sorry to hear you're going through so much right now. Holidays can be a particularly rough time so please try to be extra gentle with yourself. Take a toke and chill. I know your chapbooks will be incredible...regardless of whether we can plant them or not. Just making them at all is quite an accomplishment and one to feel proud of. Try to make it easier on yourself, you know? I'm keepin' a good thought for you, Rick. -- Nancy
Have you thought about just doing one page or the cover?
Just a thought.
Good luck and take care-
Jordan
Dear Rick,
I'm really sorry to hear about your great-aunt's death, and also your frustrations with your project. Though both are completely natural (if very different) phenomena, that doesn't lessen their difficulty. Frankly, I've never participated in or heard of a project (especially a hands-on hand-made project of any depth) that did not pose significant and sometimes totally maddening, hair-pulling-out challenges. I know you'll find a way to navigate both your sadness and your frustration, and I wholeheartedly agree with Nancy in her hope that you'll be kind to yourself through this process. I can't imagine the severe ice in the Northeast is helping your mood any (or maybe you love the col?) -- so stay warm, too!
As for your paper difficulties, I like Jordan's suggestion quite a bit: if you can't afford to make the entire book plantable, what if you incorporated a single sheet that readers could tear out of the book and plant? Then you'd have the delightful "assignment" of writing a poem that instructs the reader how to do that! Or, alternately, you could find a way to attach a literal seed packet to each book -- where I live, you can get organic seed packets for about a dollar, and perhaps that would be affordable, for around a dozen books?
Your bottom-line back-up plan can of course be to print the books on regular paper, perhaps using some of the paper your girlfriend bought you (what a sweet girlfriend!) as covers? In the meanwhile, however, I wonder how you can think creatively about ways to incorporate more literal ideas of planting and growing into your project without breaking the bank...
Keep us posted!
Most best,
Jen
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