The advantages of this technique are many:
• I now have a use for all those discarded yogurt containers and hair coloring squeeze bottles; they make excellent pouring cups and drawing tools.
• I’ve developed marvelous upper-body strength, without the cost of a gym membership, from hauling forty-two pound pails of damp fiber (pulp) around the studio.
• At the market I’m known for my fashion sense; my pulp splattered clothing makes quite an impression.
• I’ve discovered that a bucket of pulp is the better mousetrap (I am withholding the disgusting details).
• Looking for additions to my motley collection of blenders (used to mix pigment and chemicals) gives me a reason to stop and shop garage sales.
• Friends have found that the five-gallon pulp shipping pails make nifty nesting buckets for Rhode Island Reds.
• And, of course, there is the pleasure of swirling my hands through five gallons of glorious color to mix fiber and pigment.

The drawbacks are few:
• Cotton rag fiber spoils, and it is no secret when it does. Open the doors and windows and turn on the fans!
• Then there is the problem of color test strips catching fire in the microwave — quite a dramatic touch, but a bit dangerous.

So why pulp painting? It works.

—Published in the March/April 1998 Horn Book Magazine