Vera Freeman   When I first started in the handmade paper business, back in 1958, there simply was no commercially available American handmade paper. Some people�notably Douglass Howell�made paper: for exhibits, for their own artistic use, as a hobby, but not for sale. All handmade paper was imported. If you look at Specimens, the handmade paper bible, published in 1954, you will find no American handmade paper there, but many beautiful and unique specimens from Japan, France, England, and Germany.   No doubt, the beauty and quality of these imports inspired some American papermakers to start their craft. With technical and aesthetic innovations, they took the imported sheets as models, and built upon them, using their own techniques and imaginations, creating a gamut of Western-style papers, high in quality, and dazzling in diversity. In the 1970s Timothy Barrett apprenticed in Japan and brought home the expertise of making Oriental paper in a Western country. From then on, the cross-fertilization continued, foreign makers looking to the American market, not only to research this market's needs, but also to learn about technology and environmental concerns. The variety of both American and imported grades could not have resulted without the mutual influence and affect that is still taking place today.   The beauty and individual character of imported handmade papers makes them appealing. Whereas mass-produced papers cannot be told one from another, each grade of handmade paper has a particular look and feel. If you meet a sheet of Apta, or Kochi, or Chatham, you greet it as an old friend, and will not confuse it with another grade. You can even recognize the characteristics of a certain papermaker: Barcham Green papers have a family resemblance, just as papers made today by papermakers like Nirma Zarate of Colombia are siblings, however much they differ in color and design.   The challenge for papermakers is to produce these unique sheets in a quality that makes them technically appropriate for the artistic and practical use for which they are meant. Here the importer has an important role to play: to teach, demonstrate, and insist that the papermaker use the highest state of the art in producing her or his sheets, to provide the right surface, weight, size, and chemical/physical characteristics that are desired.   The role of the importer is also crucial in less esoteric and more mundane matters. Importers can work only with suppliers who have enough business sense to realize that they have to satisfy certain commercial conditions. This is one of the gravest problems, since, it seems, the human qualities necessary for the artistic endeavor to make beautiful papers are opposite to those human qualities needed for practical considerations of cost, financing, packaging, timing, and shipping. The importer, usually, must teach economics and business management, and must employ the stick and carrot principle to succeed in bringing to these shores papers undamaged in shipping, in the needed quantities to permit distribution, on time, and at a reasonable cost. A tall order!   Chuck Izui   Handmade paper has been revealing itself to humans for over fifteen hundred years. The pleasure of touching and creating with outstanding paper is perhaps indescribable. Yet the qualities that made paper astonishing ages ago still fascinate and entice us today.   Some may argue that the finest handmade paper comes from France or China, the United States or any paper producing country. Here at Aiko's Art Materials, we believe that handmade Japanese paper (washi) is unparalleled: the soft elegance of Unryushi; the warm radiance of Seikosen; the tactility of Momigami; the strength and power of Kurotani Hatome; and the distinctive aroma of Katagami. Where else does such a diverse assortment of handmade paper exist? No wonder washi's offerings seduce us. Obviously, the importing and selling of Japanese paper has had an effect in creating interest and demand for washi. To meet this demand, some production processes have been altered to increase productivity. While the use of hot metal drying panels and the use of chemical cooking solutions may spark an eternal pro and con debate, some very definite minuses have occurred. Once considered inexpensive, washi has become a rather pricey commodity. High demand, rising raw materials and equipment costs, a declining number of production papermakers, and a strong currency have all factored into this dramatic rise. Sadly, domestic and international pressure to combat increasing prices has forced some papermakers to mix cheaper fibers into their product lines, thus creating less desirable paper.    Because we specialize in Japanese paper, we strive to keep a certain awareness of the particular difficulties facing Japanese papermakers. While we offer papermakers no set guidelines or criteria, we do insist on one thing: that they make paper conforming to their highest standards. If the paper is of excellent quality, we are compelled to purchase it again and again.   When Aiko Nakane established Aiko's Art Materials in the mid-1950s, most artists in the United States worked on canvas or heavy European paper. Few artists knew of the existence of Japanese paper and fewer still actively sought out this "unusual" product. In those days, they openly scorned many characteristics of washi. Complaints ranged from the obvious ("too light, too absorbent") to the absurd ("edges too ragged"). Despite these overt criticisms, Aiko persevered because of her faith in Japanese paper. Informing and educating people about washi became a lifelong endeavor. Flash forward some forty years and we now almost casually observe how Japanese paper permeates our senses, not only in the fine arts but in other areas as well�graphic design, art restoration, architecture, and fashion, to name a few. Perhaps most satisfying is the ground swell of papermaking classes and programs. At the very least this indicates an awareness and interest in papermaking but, more importantly, this ensures that the hand papermaking process will pass on to another generation.   Aimée Kligman   The handmade paper industry has never been so healthy nor enjoyed such a favored status as it does today. People who have made importing papers their lifetime pursuit have played a major role in this boom. It has taken many years for the importer/educator to teach the market to readily accept and partake in the usage of handmade papers. Because of this pioneering work, and encouraged by the increasing demand for handmade papers from abroad, the craft in the United States found many avid followers whose creations would have never borne fruit had it not been for the exposure of imported handmade papers on the market. Handmade papers from abroad have long served as the benchmark for evaluating domestic handmade papers.   The importer has to be a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to the qualities of the papers she or he imports and makes available. When dealing with the European continent, I have not found it unusual to receive papers that were handmade and quite inconsistent in weight, appearance, and color. The papermakers ascribed these differences to artistic license. As an importer catering to a discriminating market, I have had to use diplomacy and sometimes language skills to communicate the necessary requirements for accepting handmade papers. Consistency from manufacture to manufacture is one of the most important qualities to consider if one is to market a paper for more than one life cycle.    The criteria utilized for papers that we import at Victoria Paper Company boil down to a very simple paradigm: we need to be the first to introduce the particular type of paper to the market, once we have judged its viability. Along with that come prerequisite exclusive agreements, which sometimes are not adhered to, especially by the rising cottage industries of the West. The papers must also conform to the likings of the American consumer, who is much more likely to experiment with different types than ten years ago. Timely deliveries, consistency in quality, and professionalism are all issues that come into play as one deviates from the norm, represented by the time-honored imported papers. However, with very few exceptions, most small papermaking operations have absolutely no clue as to the needs and wants of the American market, albeit they all view it as their gold mine.   Ecological aspects of importing papers are at the very core of the Victoria Paper Company. This impetus drives us and I made it a priority at the very inception of our activities. Although there seems to be a natural conflict between ecology and industry, due to individual preferences in some cases and government pressures in others, hand papermakers are utilizing fewer and fewer materials that are not easily renewable. All of the papermakers we deal with in Latin American countries make papers from sustainable fibers and easily renewable plants. There is a great consciousness of ecological correctness among papermakers in Latin America. This comes as no surprise, since the region is home to the world's largest rain forest, which continues to be decimated by other industries. In general, imported handmade papers of the 1990s tend to call for much more respect of the world's ecological balance than previously.   Nigel Macfarlane   Khadi Papers, based in the UK, has been importing handmade papers from India, Nepal, and Bhutan since 1980. Before this, really, no one else was doing it and so our experience of the impact of importing on "local papermaking traditions" is perhaps of special value. Because of limited space I will talk here just about our experiences in India.    The situation we found in India at the end of the 1970s was a complex one. Traditional papermaking, the craft as practiced by the Muslim kagzis, had already practically died out due to little demand for traditional paper. Apart from this there were approximately 250 small papermaking units around the country, which the Indian government supported as a means of creating employment. All but one or two of these units operated at a loss and many had simply stopped producing any paper at all. However, the technology that had been developed for these units�the Indian-made Hollander beaters and lifting vats�could be adapted to making artists' papers, the kind of papers that interested us. Not only this, India also had an abundance of cotton rag, the ideal raw material for the watercolor and printmaking paper we wanted.   We found, therefore, more a failing government program (but one with potential) than a threatened papermaking tradition. Since then, UNIDO and other agencies have spent a lot of money to develop Indian handmade paper as a consumer product. As a result, many of the traditional kagzis now make non-traditional decorative papers for export and this has led, particularly in Sanganer (one of the papermaking centers in North India), to a huge increase in output. For these kagzis, the alternative to making the new kinds of paper would be no work, or work in another industry.   Our main interest has been in South India, where we have recently set up our own paper mill in partnership with Vasudevan, for many years the manager of the Handmade Paper Institute at Pune. This is the only paper mill in India with a Western importer directly involved. It is a unique project in many ways: in the relationship between the managers and the workers (we all get our hands wet); in the care taken in producing the papers (making them well, not just fast!); and in many technical innovations. Here we are manufacturing a kind of paper that no one else in India wants to make: white artists' paper. No one else wants to make it because it is the most demanding: any defects show on a sheet of white paper. The papers we produce here range from postcard-size, deckle edged sheets to Indian Atlas, at a meter by nearly a meter and a half, the biggest production rag paper made anywhere in the world. The "Indian-ness" of these papers is not the most important thing about them; above all, we create these rugged, characterful papers for artists to paint on, to draw on, or to print on.   Alexandra Soteriou   When I first visited India in 1985 I was a struggling papermaker and had just received a grant to study and document traditional papermaking there. I traveled for three months, talking with countless tearful elder papermakers who saw the extinction of the craft in India. This led me to years of traveling back-and-forth, to document in a book as much about the craft as I could. When the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) invited me to help revitalize the craft in India, I began to see other options besides my post-mortem publication.   My first day in the field I visited Gandhi's former headquarters in the heart of India, where the papermakers used banana fiber to make dark brown paper about a half inch thick, for housing walls in barren areas where wood was scarce. From then on I lost any notion of finding in India the perfect white watercolor paper of Europe or America. I have always admired the process of making the paper, thinking it was just as important as the end result sheet. The delight of finding ways to beautify and decorate Indian handmades and support papermakers through export came to me intuitively rather than through mental analysis. The end result of much hard work and exporting has been that many hundreds of families are employed at the craft and the success of my company, World Paper, has been copied by countless Indian paper producers, creating one of the world's largest groups of active papermakers. I have begun similar work in Nepal and plan work in other countries. I really like to think of craft in human terms, not just the end product. Without doubt, support through export trade has fostered the survival of the craft in countries like India, the Philippines, Thailand, Nepal, and China.   The import of varieties of handmades from around the world into the U.S. market has created a much broader market, opened up many new venues for use and sales, enhanced public awareness, and, in turn, has actually created more opportunity for American papermakers. Richard Langdell, of Vermont, is one example. His unique flower papers are so beautiful that they hold their value against any imports. Jerusalem Papers in Omaha, Rugg Road Paper Co. in Massachusetts, McGregor/Vinzani in Maine, Oxcart in Minnesota, and Evanescent Press in California exemplify the type of active production possible in the United States in tandem with an expanding import market. The fine sheets of Dieu Donné and Twinrocker stand out, distinctly different from the new wave of decorative imports.   American papermakers owe their knowledge of the craft to the work of artisans from different countries who preceded them. Protectionism did not work in the past and today, in this time of one world community, it is impossible. There seems to be room for a great variety of handmades from the pristine perfect and expensive sheet to the bizarre in color, content, texture, and size. In the ebb and flow of popular taste, sometimes it is the violation of the traditional that opens up a renewed appreciation for that very tradition. I find it invigorating to see all the new visions and hybrids of the age-old papermaking craft.