What characterized Bart's installations was their purity and simplicity. To enter a room that temporarily housed one of those installations was to be changed. But you had to experience them as well as see them, allow your emotions to adjust to the calm and order they inspired. If you did join their meditative state, your ordinary perceptions of light and color were changed profoundly, and what you first perceived as a white wall became rhythmically moving bands of color animated by light which penetrated, overlapped, and reflected from translucent surfaces. If quiet contemplation is a guide to understanding simplicity and beauty, then Bart's work offered both the structure and the pleasure for such contemplation. The challenge of translating these concepts, so successfully realized in large scale installations, into individual works of handmade paper was not for the impatient or faint hearted. Bart was initially attracted to working in handmade paper because of the possibility of expressing his ideas on a continuous surface. He viewed the pieces as sketches for his larger work. This early abstract work has the same ethereal quality and sense of structure as the installations. Then, in 1982, Bart began a commission in handmade paper for the Cathedral in Autun, France. The images from the Stations of the Cross that evolved from 1982 to 1989 marked a distinct change in his approach to making images in handmade paper. The figurative works from this period are spirit made flesh. They evoke a depth of feeling appropriate to the subject matter, yet are rendered in a clear, lyrical style which is both light and evocative. After seven years on this project, Bart returned to abstract imagery but with a tremendous release of energy which found resolution in a new scale and expressionistic imagery. The two paths of Bart's work, his installations and his handmade paper, have been at points parallel, at points intertwined. Although the outcome of his talent and energies in each case appear quite distinct, the strong sense of discipline and a purity of approach to each medium unifies these two trains of thought. Whether Bart works two- or three-dimensionally, his foremost concern is light, how we perceive what we see. Whether it is the density of translucent fabric or the thinness of a watermark, as much lies hidden as revealed and that is the mystery of Bart's work as well as life itself.   Sue Gosin: Bart, can you tell me what kind of work you were doing before you started working on handmade paper? Bart Wasserman: When I first started working with you at Dieu Donne, I was just beginning to make installations with modules made of wooden stretchers covered with very translucent fabrics. These stretchers were four inches wide, seventy-two inches long, and deeper than painter's stretcher, thus very sculptural. Even though the work was related to painting, I did everything I could to make it sculpture. I made one of them so big you couldn't see it in a single glance, you were compelled to go up to it and follow the modules. That was my way of getting time and movement into the work. The installation was 100 feet long and consisted of eighty-eight panels on a curved wall. SG: Can you describe the experience of this installation? BW: You walk into a space most of which is dark. Only one white wall is lit. On it there are slightly different colored modules which are glowing. They're not colored by means of paint but by the different densities and tonalities of the various translucent fabric used, and by the action of the light that falls on them. The light passes through the fabric, touches the wall behind it, and returns modified to the viewer. SG: So the light reveals the minute variations of color. BW: Yes, it is the perception of light, changed by the act of penetration and reflection. SG: What brought you to Dieu Donne? BW: I wanted to create the same effect on a continuous surface, not using modules. SG: I remember that the first pieces were geometric shapes made from cotton rag pulp and linen rag pulp. BW: We began work with those two pulps and that's all I've ever worked with. SG: The difference in scale from your installations to the paper pieces was pretty dramatic. The first paper pieces were 18" by 24", then we found that 22" by 30" was a comfortable format. BW: We worked small to solve problems in the big installations. Instead of spending four months making an installation, I could go to your mill and play with my ideas. Eventually, the handmade paper work began to dictate my installations. SG: That makes sense; it's like painters who do numerous preliminary drawings in preparation for a large-scale piece. Your installation work has a strong meditative quality, while your early work at the Mill is almost visual music. BW: The early paper pieces really were tonal drawings. SG: We used to have a piano at the Mill and you were the only artist who ever sat down and played Mozart for us while we worked on your pieces. BW: While I was in art school I took composition lessons, not to be a composer but to find out how music is put together. In order to train myself as an artist on my own, I started to apply some of the things from my music training to my art, specifically counterpoint. SG: I find this body of work from 1979 until 1982 rhythmic. And again, you are playing with how light penetrates a single couch, a double couch, a triple couch, and so on. Much of the work can be viewed either by back light or front light. The same piece will look quite different depending on the light source and the "colors" of the natural linen pulp and the white cotton pulp. So you are working very closely with the concepts that concerned you in your installation work. BW: I didn't especially like stripes but I was following a melodic line working with rhythm and breaking the rhythm in surprising ways. I decided to soften the edges by doing the handwork myself instead of directing you and Paul Wong to add or remove a panel of pulp. The work started changing and we began to use the tension between linen and cotton to create a crinoline effect. SG: All of these softer tonal pieces are again studies in the perception of light. The cockling is very dramatic by front light but not so when back lit. The weaker cotton pulp reacts to the strong linen pulp. Then, in 1982, your work at Dieu Donne changed dramatically. BW: In 1982 I began work for the 2000th anniversary of the city of Autun in France. The project originally involved creating Stations of the Cross for the Cathedral in Autun. Although the project did not work out, I became intrigued with the subject matter and with working figuratively in handmade paper. SG: Going from abstract to figurative work was a real turning point for you. BW: There are fourteen Stations of the Cross. I took out two Falls and I added Pilot Washing his Hands and the Crown of Thorns, well known as Passion images. SG: You were drawing the images directly onto the felt using finely beaten white cotton rag pulp. Then we'd couch a linen rag sheet on top. BW: All the images are back lit so that the more dense areas of pulp appear darker even when the drawing is white. SG: Approximately how many images did you make for each Station? BW: There was only one final image per Station but I had to do each one as many as twelve times to get it right. I did very little else from 1982 to 1989. SG: The drawing of Christ on Veronica's Napkin is slightly different. BW: I did this drawing of Christ on a felt and I noticed a linen sheet that had just been pressed, lying on another felt. So I asked if I could use it. I picked up the damp linen sheet and threw it down on the drawing. Then I think we used a little methyl cellulose and couched a fresh white cotton sheet on top and pressed it. SG: The linen sheet worked wonderfully as the napkin, it really looks like cloth. What about the image of the Fall? BW: There are three Falls in the traditional Stations of the Cross, and I remember that I wanted to have a feeling that this really hurts. So, instead of just drawing with a squeeze bottle, I dug in. I not only squeezed, but I poured and scraped and I washed out and added pulp again. It was from the results of this that I knew I could work with a very loose abstract image. SG: You returned to abstract imagery in 1989. BW: Briefly, I went back to stripes, but I did them freehand on the diagonal and I started exploding them. We flooded the drawing on the felt, then slammed the backing couch down. A lot of pulp on the felt shot out from under the mould. What was left looked like a river delta -- Goodbye stripes! SG: These were dried on metal. BW: But soon we air dried them, instead of restraining them on metal. They became sculptural and textural. I also changed the lighting from back to front. SG: After years of exploring how light reveals an image through a medium, you began concentrating on the surface and at the same time you began to do large scale images. BW: We worked with a sheet size of 34" x 60" and made panels that fit together to form large images, one is 27 feet long. SG: Working with the linen pulp on top, exploiting how it pulls and crinkles, gives you a very dramatic calligraphic line. BW: But it was difficult to register the panels. Often, I did two or three of each to get just the right fit. SG: These are certainly as ambitious as the Stations. And it's interesting that not only did you return to abstract imagery but now the scale is coming closer to your installation work. These are not handmade paper sketches for larger work, this is the larger work. Also, working your image on the surface gives these pieces a very earthy quality. I think your physical involvement shows. BW: Over the years, I got more involved in the process, understanding it, exploiting it, but I always worked in collaboration. I consult Paul every step of the way. He opens doors even now. He and Sharon Durr have supervised the drying process, which is so critical to my work. I've often collaborated with artists, musicians, and film makers, either helping them in the way you help me or vice versa; collaboration is the whole thing. SG: During this period, between 1989 and 1994, you also worked on individual pieces that were 36" x 60". Most of the images are expressionistic and seem to be created by the tension between the two pulps. The work has evolved completely from ethereal moments in time to wrinkled tough hides. It's quite amazing to see the range of work with this simple formula of playing cotton rag pulp against linen rag pulp. BW: We had been doing this for quite a stretch, from 1989-1994, five years, and I was beginning to know almost everything I could about this particular way of working. It's not very surprising for me anymore. So I decided one day to stop chopping, cutting, and spraying the pulp. I just started caressing the surface with some aluminum sheeting. This new work can be shown lit from both front and back. SG: Where do you see yourself going from here? BW: I think everybody's got to adapt to what's happening in the art world. Much of my large-scale installation work no longer exists. It was site-specific. There is plenty of documentation but the work no longer exists. SG: It's the nature of installation art that it is ephemeral. Documentation is helpful but it's not the real thing. I'm really happy that the handmade paper work will be around for awhile. BW: I see much of my art becoming very private. I see myself making things that may never be installed in my lifetime. I also see myself making some sculpture, working with handmade paper in a three-dimensional context, either as free-standing pieces or making enough paper work to cover a lit dome. I'm also interested in doing something different. I'd like to make life-size portraits in color, in handmade paper, Robert Ryman with his parrot. SG: A bit of Manet in handmade paper. BW: Exactly. When I started working in handmade paper eighteen years ago, I didn't realize how important this work would become to me. If you look at the early work in relation to the late pieces, there is a constant: two rag pulps, cotton and linen, used together in separate layers, but never mixed. In the beginning I was imposing my art on paper; now paper is imposing itself on my art. I have never disguised the paper, to make it something it's not. I think the paper is the art and vice versa. SG: I know that you have a real reverence for nature and that comes through your work. I think of that as key to your being. Hand papermaking is such a natural process, it has much to teach us if we are willing to learn. I think by that definition you have been open to this process and the results are evident in your work.   Bart speaks clearly of his experience in papermaking, and I think that he echoes the feelings of many artists who come to hand papermaking for the first time. Initially, one approaches the process, sometimes with false assumptions of what it can do for you. Then the negotiation process of give and take begins. The craft of making paper teaches you the heart and the art of the medium. If you are receptive to its gifts, they are a means of self-expression. For over eighteen years, Bart has worked in  the medium, solely, as an artist, as the leader in a collaborative team. Although he is not a technician, he has come to understand and appreciate papermaking's most distinctive qualities. Wisely, he has structured his approach to the medium so that within the clear limitations of the process he can perform with great creativity. His primary interest in light and how it describes the world for us is well-suited to hand papermaking. Watermarking is distinctive to no other medium. Whether using the  traditional definition of a watermark or a broader concept of perception, hand papermaking offers an ideal format for the explorations. And on an emotional level, Bart has been able to exploit a wide range of feelings, from passion to serenity, from the interactions of two pulps. We, at Dieu Donne, look forward to another long period of collaboration with him.