Papier-mâché, recycled paper, MoldingPulp: what it really is
People often ask whether my lamps are papier-mâché. The honest answer is that they start that way and do not end that way. Here is what is really inside one of my pieces, and why I still use the word.
The starting point
What papier-mâché is
Paper, water, glue. You tear, you soak, you apply, you let it dry. The technique is centuries old and everyone has tried it once, at school or elsewhere.
That is how I began, in Morocco, some fifteen years ago. The problem showed up at the first drying: paper and glue alone warp. The piece pulls, buckles, and never quite returns to the shape of the mould. For a one-off sculpture that hardly matters. For a lamp that has to be made again exactly the same, it is a dead end.
What I changed
Plaster changes everything
By adding plaster to the paper pulp I got a paste that takes the imprint of the mould and holds it. The paper fibres reinforce the plaster, much as fibres do in concrete; the plaster gives strength and weight. The piece dries without pulling.
I call this paste MoldingPulp. It is not a name invented for the occasion: it is the name of a recipe I worked out myself and have been refining ever since, batch after batch, changing the grain of the paper, the share of plaster, the way a piece comes out of its mould.
The recipe
What goes into it
- Salvaged newspaperdry-ground near Béziers, to a grain I choose.
- Plasterit gives the strength, the weight and the fidelity to the mould.
- A plant-based glueflour, nothing more complicated.
- Mineral pigmentsochres, oxides, carbon black, mixed into the paste rather than painted on.
- Beeswaxapplied after sanding: it brings the colour back and hardens the surface.
- A water-based varnishcertified with the European Ecolabel, on the pieces that need it.
No resin, no plastic.
The words
Why I still say papier-mâché
If I answer that it is a composite of paper pulp and plaster, nobody pictures anything. If I say papier-mâché, everyone pictures it at once — and is slightly wrong. I would rather be understood first and precise second.
So I keep three words, each in its place. Papier-mâché says where it comes from. Recycled paper says what it is made of. MoldingPulp names the recipe, the one that keeps a lamp from my workshop from warping.
Living with it
What it changes once the piece is yours
The weight is a surprise: heavier than an object made of paper, and it stands on its own. Sanding reveals a terrazzo grain, with flecks of newsprint at the surface — blue, red and green specks that are printing ink. Every piece has its own pattern, and it is the one signature that cannot be reproduced.
The colour is in the mass, not on the surface: a scratch does not reveal another material underneath. And if a piece breaks, it comes back to the workshop and I repair it, because I know exactly what is inside. That is something a brand producing elsewhere cannot promise. Everyday care takes three gestures: caring for a piece.
See
The pieces made in this material
Everything from the workshop comes out of this paste, shaped one at a time: bedside lamps, table lamps, desk lamps, pendant lights, wall lights, portable lamps, sculptural lamps and floor lamps and the coffee table.
The gestures themselves, from grinding to waxing, are on the workshop page.
In the notebook: how a lamp is made, from ground newspaper to wax, and a sculptural lamp drawn for one place.
To work out which one: choosing a lamp room by room.
Where it comes from: Mirleft, 2008.