The Divine Stickiness of Wheat Paste

or: how I'm reverting to my childhood...again.

In this week’s installment of Eliza does things she should have done when she was eight years old, we are (re)introduced to papier maché.

At least, the first stages of it.

This stage, to be specific:

It’s got all the papier, but the maché bits are still pending. I’m trying to psych myself up to get all sticky with glue and god knows what, and in the meantime, I’m drawing up about sixteen millionty other things to make¹.

I blame the internet.

I was just sitting here minding my own business last week when I saw these cool painted boxes somewhere². They looked almost like a box I bought the first time I lived in Seattle, from this little shop on Boston St and Eastlake Ave that sold only local art. That one was painted wood, with a flat top and some kind of wallpaper inside and a soldered pendant on the top that said MUSE.³

I’m at danger of digressing here, but let’s just say that it’s one of the few physical things we lost that I actually still think about. So, naturally, when I found this somewhat-similar box online, it caught my attention.

And after reading the description, I found it wasn’t wood at all — it was papier maché. I’d sort of assumed that most of that particular method was utilized by kids in elementary schools, covering balloons with strips of newspaper and elmer’s glue⁴ to make “bowls” for our parents. I remember hating it when we had to pop the balloons, but didn’t remember much about the resulting bowl.⁵ I sort of remember lumps. And peeling elmer’s off my fingertips.

Needless to say, I did not have much by way of a burning desire to try it as a grown-up⁶.

But, y’all…I googled.

It seems that papier maché has had a bit of a glow-up. Or was already a bombshell, but I’d never interacted with her as an adult. Because there are a TON of people doing really cool things with paper and glue.

And that, my friends, is why I’m now sitting here waiting for wheat paste to cool off enough to touch, and why I keep drawing weird animals with holes in their chests and little hanging altars made for wishes.

The process is really simple.

At least, the one I’m using is simple. Draw things. Cut them out of styrofoam or posterboard or something. Stick them together and tape the edges. Shove in some wire for hanging. Slap on the maché, and paint when it’s dry.

I hear it can get a little fiddly once you start putting on the wheat-pasted torn paper bits, but sometimes, fiddly = escapist fun, so I’m amassing a pile of taped stuff to play with.⁷

Little critters keep popping up unbidden in my brain now. I’ll be sitting here peacefully planning out a productive week, and all of a sudden, my brain’s all BUT WHAT ABOUT A FLYING FAIRY FERRET? and then that’s all I can think about.

Distracting, but I’m perfectly fine with distraction from (::flaps hands::) all of the rest of the world at the moment.

Because that’s what role this particular flash-obsession is filling: it’s my mental escape. A little bit of happy creation when a little brain vacation someplace fun is what I desperately need.

It’s making instead of scrolling. It’s fun that doesn’t need a purpose instead of focusing on all the unfun things that don’t bother with a purpose.

This is my Happy Fun Bubble and you’re more than welcome in for a cup of spruce-tip tea and probably a scone.

Just don’t be surprised if your cup’s kind of sticky or I foist a stack of critter drawings at you, asking which one you’d make next. You might even be sitting next to a flying fairy ferret wearing a fisherman’s sweater.

It’s like being eight years old again, only with adult money to buy better glue.

1. Because going all in and lining up the aforementioned sixteen millionty projects before the first one’s done — and thus seeing if I like doing it or have any aptitude for it — is sort of my modus operandi when it comes to making stuff.

2. Of course, I can’t find them now, or I’d show you which ones. My search history was no help, so I’m pretty sure they were just a fever-dream or brief cessation of brain activity for no apparent reason. It happens.

3. It was one of my most prized possessions for the next couple decades, and held a small, pink, ceramic pig that I bought at the Uptown Restaurant in Norfolk, NE, also made by a local artist. Sadly, the sky ate both of them during the whole tornado thing.

4. Just my fourth grade class, then? Cool, cool.

5. Y’know, come to think of it…I never saw that thing again. I gave it to my mom and I remember her taking it and smiling or whatever…and then it just vanished. Clearly, the only explanation that makes sense is that my mom is actually a wizard.

6. Alleged. Alleged grown-up.

7. It’s easier to do a bunch at once, I figure. Less time with hands covered in gloop.