From grass to paper.

Handmade paper from our native grasses — a distinctively beautiful souvenir of Central Australia.

01 / Nature, transformed

The desert offers
up its ingredients.

Curtin Springs Paper allows us to show you the intricacies of our home, the minute detail of our landscape and just how diverse and amazing it really is.

Curtin Springs Paper invites the desert to offer up its hardy ingredients to combine and make something beautiful.

Nature is literally transformed in this remote and special part of Central Australia. Here native grasses are harvested, pulped and pressed to create a distinctive and beautiful souvenir of Central Australia.

A fan of cream handmade Curtin Springs Paper sheets with a bundle of dried native grass — Handmade sheets with the native grass they are made from.

02 / Native grasses and natural ingredients

Hands pressing a wooden mould and deckle onto green grass pulp to form a sheet of paper

Every production
run is unique.

We harvest our native grasses by hand, using a pair of secateurs, a hessian sack and our knowledge of the Curtin Springs landscape.

Each type of grass creates a different texture and feel in the paper, whether it be spinifex, oat grass, woollybutt, kangaroo or kerosene grass. The different seasons also produce differences in the papers. Therefore, each and every production run makes a quality paper that is unique and individually made.

In addition, we continue to experiment with blending and texture, using plants, flowers, clay, sand and cow poo as well as other things like the bangtails from the cattle. The paper is suitable for an endless array of uses and we are investigating lots of them.

03 / What else goes on?

Paper beads,
jewellery and The Gallery.

The one thing we are always certain of here, is that there is always the chance to continue with change. The art sector was always going to be interested in Curtin Springs Paper. But we weren’t sure what that involvement would look like.

Amee Dennis (one of our next generation) came into the office one day. She said, “Mum, I think we can use our paper to make beads and the beads to make jewellery. I think this would really add to the story we are telling.” So that’s exactly what we have been doing.

Amee has a very artistic streak and is allowing her creativity to develop. Curtin Springs Paper – Jewellery is handmade, completely individual pieces of jewellery that use Curtin Springs Paper as the focus. Not content with just one direction into the creative world, Amee has held multiple exhibitions of artwork from Curtin Springs Paper.

We have opened The Gallery, which is our chance to showcase Amee’s work, the work of our Artists in Residence and for visitors to experience the beauty of Curtin Springs Paper in a range of different mediums. Spending time in The Gallery is part of the 1 hr Curtin Springs Paper tour.

Amee Dennis smiling at her bench in the paper studio among sheets of handmade paper — Amee Dennis in the paper studio.

The idea that started the jewellery

Mum, I think we can use our paper to make beads and the beads to make jewellery.
Amee Dennis

04 / Paper making in the Old Abattoir

A paper maker lifting grass pulp from a vat inside the Old Abattoir while a visitor watches

No big factory.
Just the Old Abattoir.

Where we make our paper might surprise and fascinate you. There is no big factory here, but instead a building where we pay homage and respect to our pastoral and family history – the Old Abattoir. Built in the late 1970s and decommissioned in the mid 1980s, the building and its features appear as though it has been built to purpose; with its sloped floor and separate cold room it is perfect for paper making.

We repurposed and recycled almost everything in the building from somewhere else on our million-acre station. This reveals the innovation and inventiveness that only remote living can bring!

We milled timber from desert oak trees to use in displays. It was important to us to find a home for these trees after they had been killed by bushfires.
The timber fence posts are the original mulga fencing posts from the 1950s. Peter hand-cut and hand-drilled these posts. They were part of the boundary fence until they were ‘retired’ to be used here.
The vat is an old bath.
The men manufactured the 15 tonne paper press from the framework of an old truck, old car springs, and a jack found ‘down behind the shed’.

05 / How you can enjoy Curtin Springs Paper

Join a tour.
Meet the makers.

Curtin Springs Paper tours.

You can join one of our 1 hr Curtin Springs Paper tours to share the wonders of our home and get to know our history, landscape and connection to the land. Tours run daily at 4pm. A minimum of 2 full paying adults. Bookings preferred.

Explore the paper tour →