The book reflects the culture of both countries and the journey Holman embarked on as a child. Born in Bombay, Holman's father was Maharashtrian and her mother American. Called half-breed by other children, Holman expressed her feelings through draWing, painting, and eventually printmaking. As a young girl, Holman felt a deep connection with her older cousin, poet Tom Galt, who was well-traveled and multi-lingual. She may have admired most his ability to merge both East and West, in his lifestyle and his art.  After Galt's death in 1988, Holman began to consider how she might acknowledge his strong influence in her life. When she saw a book of beautiful monoprints and text, Letter to Columbus, from Logan Elm Press, Holman was inspired to create her own book using her artwork and Galt's poetry. Since Galt had written extensively, a book of his poems with her images seemed worth investigating. The exploration led her in many unexpected directions and required much more time than she initially anticipated. Fortunately, like many of the best projects, Holman's book benefits from a luxury of time so seldom allowed in commercial ventures.  Holman chose works by Galt which illustrate the poetic passage of life, from its dawn to its dusk. She uses the title of one of the poems, Stream of Life, not only as the title but also as the core image of the book, which concerns the voyage of life, the growth of awareness and understanding. The book is in the shape of Kashmiri houseboats, homes on Dal Lake in Holman's youth, vessels which carry and protect one on the stormy, unknown sea of life.  Shireen Holman, printing the woodcuts for Stream of Life, at Pyramid Atlantic, Riverdale, Maryland.    Coming to Maryland from Boston in 1985, Holman ought a printmaking studio similar to the Experimental Etching Studio where she had printed in Masachusetts. She found what she was searching for in Pyramid Prints and Paperworks, a print, paper, and book art center, then in Baltimore, now known as Pyramid Atlantic and located in Riverdale, Maryland. At first, as a studio rental artist, Holman created her monoprints at Pyramid. While she was working on her prints, Holman could not help but be intrigued by the pervasive papermaking activity that was then-and still remains-the core of Pyramid's focus. Soon she was making paper for her monoprints. Once Holman's sketches for the book of Galt's poetry were complete, Helen Frederick, artistic director of Pyramid , became very excited about the project. After rea ding about Peggy Prentice's version of Inangaro (another Logan Elm Press project) in this magazine [Volume 5 Number 2, Winter 1990), Holman met Prentice, who was teaching a workshop at Pyramid. Prentice was supportive of Stream of Life and provided Holm an with many technical options for the entire paper and print processes. This spreading enthusiasm a nd sharing of technical information is typical of PyTamid's value, enabling artists to create works that  tretch beyond their initial skills. Ready to make paper and planning on two solid weeks of work, Frederick beat the fiber for sheet  forming and pulp painting, then provided support and technical advice throughout the papermaking process. Holman spent nine-hour days pulling sheets and colorin the pages through heavy, double-frosted, Mylar stencils. She pulled each doublepage spread from a large vat of one part linen to three parts abaca using a 22" x 2 � mold. She cut an industrial Styrofoam known as "blue-board," used for insulation in construction, to create the shaped deckle that mirrors the silhouette of t he Kashmiri houseboat.  Holman used overbeaten, short-fibered cotton linter to make colored pulp to apply to the base sheets. She found that generous quantities of formation aid made the pulp flow better and helped create the washes she sought. She painted onto the base sheets by pouring the fine pulp from squeeze bottles, working with eighteen colors in thin transparencies to create an even greater range of colors. The colors chosen complement the imagery and the poetry. They start out as early morning colors in the beginning of the book, go on through the day, and end as the colors of twilight with the last poem.  Holman worked on thirty sheets at a time. She formed the sheets, painted them on one side, and pressed them once. She turned each page over and sprayed it with an Air Mister to rehydrate the base sheet fibers enough to bond with the colored pulp paintin Holman then did on the second side. If she did not finish with the pulp painting on both sides by day's end, she left the sheets between felts. These retained enough moi ture to keep the paper from drying out. She never left the pages longer than overnight before painting them with pulp on the second side and pressing them again.  By the end of Holman's stay in the paper mill, she had pulled 250 sheets (with the help of several assistants) in four different shaped-deckle configurations. In addition, she made multi-colored pulp paintings on 450 surfaces of those pages.  Holman was now ready to print. She cut large sheets of 3/4" birch plywood down to 16" x 32" boards. Twenty-two boards were carved with images for the book, with Marathi titling around the edges. Most of the pages she printed with two separate wood blocks. Susan Goldman, resident printmaker at Pyramid, helped Holman figure out a registration system for the irregularly shaped deckle pages. Together they printed the woodcuts on an American French Tool etching press. From September through May 1994, with daily carving and weekly printing, the book gradually grew into a semblance of Holman's original vision.  When the wood block printing was complete, Holman and I continued discussions we had begun a year earlier, on the letterpress printing of the text and of three photoengravings made from drawings. Since the shaped deckles of the pages did not provide enough edge for the grippers of the press, we attached each page to a Mylar under-page. These under-pages were carefully registered so the printing would consistently land in place. Holman chose the colors of ink for the text to complement the colors of the pulp paintings and wood cuts. Again, printing stretched over several months. As Galt's poems took form on the pages, the book came into focus. One final problem was the Marathi lettering on the title page. Technology came to the rescue in the form of photopolymer plates for the letterpress. Holman provided the calligraphy in Marathi, then I scanned it into a computer and output it in place with the English translations in Bembo. We had a plate created and used this to print.  Once again the network at Pyramid was helpful when Holman was ready at last to bind. Book artist Kathleen Amt met with Holman and provided several suggestions as to how Holman might approach the binding. Amt suggested a paper wrapper to emphasize the special position handmade paper has in the book.  Now, after three years of work on the project, Holman has a fitting and memorable tribute to Tom Galt, poet, artist, cousin, and friend to a little girl long ago on another continent. Working through family illness, her own foot surgery, and the death of a parent, Holman kept the commitment most handmade books require. The journey Holman undertook with this project is a metaphor for the self-discovery she embarked upon with Galt's support and help. By combining paper, print, and book into a unified whole, Holman now has an artifact that complements her lifelong effort to integrate her own diverse heritage.  SUMMER </div>

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