About the manufacture

I always carried a biology book and a plant guide in my hand, and a pencil and crayons in my pockets. “Something” drew me to the forest and meadows; plants and herbalism fascinated me. When I remember who taught me to call plants by their names, I think with gratitude of my mother, a true “Krysia the forester” – because all the men in her family, long ago, were foresters in the Vilnius region. She infected me with this passion, which I later developed within myself. As always, this required other people, various “chances” and coincidences, and a desire for knowledge, which led me further.

I graduated with a degree in Landscape Architecture because it was the only degree program that combined a love of nature and drawing. I remembered that even when I was writing my master’s thesis, I had been thinking about fabrics made of grasses, leaves, and branches – large and spacious…

Once, while in Paris, I decided to go to Luxembourg to visit my aunt, whom I knew only from family stories. We hit it off from the very first time I met. The following year, thanks to her, I went to Brussels for an internship with a papermaking craftsman. And that’s when I was completely hooked…

Walter Lawier (that was the name of the Brussels papermaker) passed on to me all his secrets and methods, which he had been perfecting for many years. At one point, I started pestering him for his dream paper made from… plants. At first, he resisted for a long time, until he finally gave in, and together we boiled nettles to make paper.

When I returned to Poland, I started making my own “paper” – if that’s the name I could give to the result of my first, clumsy attempts. I poured a plant pulp, previously boiled in lye in a large pot on a coal stove, onto a beehive frame. I squeezed out the excess water using a rustic cheese press. The result was a grayish-brown cardboard. I still have it to this day. Then I learned from someone that paper pulp could be made at “Frania.” I burned through two washing machines…

In my family home, I was forbidden from making paper. But then I got married and immediately “hung it up” in our house. I ordered my first real paper-making frame, and someone made me a small press. It all happened in the kitchen, actually under the table, where the tub of pulp stood. My little daughter, Zosia, who was just learning to walk at the time, fell into it a few times! I dried sheets of paper on curtain rods in the windows.

At that time, immediately after my studies and internship in Brussels, I began working at the Institute of Geography of the Polish Academy of Sciences and later at the Foundation for Sustainable Development, developing the “Green Lungs of Poland” program. A wonderful team of people dreamed dreams, drew grand, beautiful plans, and considered how to preserve the natural values ​​of northeastern Poland while simultaneously implementing sustainable development in these areas. Did our five years of work prove useful to anyone, or was it confined to vast drawers in large desks and closets? I don’t know…

I also volunteered for the Polish Ecological Club – I organized the first “Earth Day” in Warsaw and conducted environmental education for children. I devoted all my free time to this. A natural continuation of this work was my column on nature conservation in the children’s magazine “BĘC,” which I edited with pleasure for many years.

When I went to work every day, I felt like I was being spun into the vortex of a huge machine that was slowly “eating” me. I lacked freedom and a sense of control over my own life. I got married, the “Green Lungs of Poland” program ended, and slowly, thanks to a series of coincidences, the Handmade Paper Factory was established. My little daughter would say, “We have texture”—beautiful, right? I began creating plant-based papers, envelopes, stationery, lampshades… everything that can be created from handmade paper.

Paper is so graceful and patient, with so much hidden light, different textures, colors…—it absorbs everything, but also reveals it, preserves it for a long time. A beautiful, mysterious material.

One day, I felt I should challenge myself to meet true experts in the art of paper. So I began studying at the Faculty of Conservation at the Academy of Fine Arts. There, I learned various techniques for dyeing paper, sewing, and binding books. I looked at paper and its quality through the eyes of an art conservator. This gave me a lot.

For several years, I have been leading handmade paper workshops and demonstrations. I strive to make them engaging for everyone – young and old, spectators and participants. During our collaborative work, as everyone crowds around the tables and press, I “smuggle in” various pieces of information related to the history of paper and plant life. When questions are asked and I hear shouts of “How did you do that? It’s impossible!” – then I know the demonstration was a success and the audience has learned something new. And they will know why a sheet of handmade paper has uneven edges – that it’s not the bookbinder’s laziness…

The plants, leaves, flowers, and herbs I use in my compositions should be picked

Very early, at dawn, still with the morning dew. That’s when they’re most beautiful – and once placed in paper, they’ll retain their colors for a long time.

One only needs to look around to notice the beauty of nature around us, to notice the often-overlooked charm of plants – those inconspicuous, seemingly ordinary, yet so extraordinary, which, hidden somewhere in the forest undergrowth or in a meadow, “play hide-and-seek with us.”

Now that I’m no longer making paper under the kitchen table, now that I have my own studio – I know that challenges await me that were previously unimaginable.

Pursuing perfection. Finding joy.

Małgorzata Lasocka