Howell's son, Dr. Timothy Howell, remembers accompanying his father on papermaking lectures and demonstrations to universities in New York state where the panels were displayed. He also recalls making paper with his father on an early New York City television show, "Captain Venture," and going on the "Merry Mailman" show with him the next day. Dr. Howell confirms that the Green Box was built to enable his father to ship the panels, via railway express, to sites where he could not transport the panels himself. The Green Box traveled widely; in some notes, dated May 26, 1965, Douglass Howell refers to the Green Box, remarking: "This collection has travelled all through New York State and from the University of Maine to that of Texas, even since 1951."   Recently thirty-two panels, which may be all of the panels that comprised the Green Box, were found in storage, among boxes of Howell's papers. These panels confirm the dating of Howell's early interests in various aspects of papermaking. Prior to this discovery, one could only establish when Howell made his early papers through his and his family's recollections, and from dated broadsides printed by Howell on his own paper. The Green Box panels display samples of papers that previously had no concrete evidence to identify the dates of their production. The inclusion of these papers in the Green Box and their method of mounting (indicating that they were all mounted at the same time) dates them between 1946, when Howell first began making paper, and 1954, the date on a broadside for an exhibition of works on Howell's handmade papers. The panels contain no works whose production can be dated later than 1954.   The panels in the Green Box illustrate two interdependent aspects of Howell's contributions to papermaking: the technical innovations he made in papermaking tools, techniques, and materials, and his development of paper as a medium of visual expression. A quick review of the panels indicates some of Howell's specific interests during this early period.   Among the panels that embody Howell's technical concerns are those that exhibit his use of vat-dyed cotton fibers in his earliest papers; his use of linen and flax as early as 1951; beating records from 1952, indicating management of the beater roll during the beating process; his experiments with sizing waterleaf papers; and his use of different screens, laid and wove, made of materials as diverse as bamboo and fabric. Some panels also contain samples of the raw materials he used to make specific papers and details of how he beat these materials.   Other panels in the Green Box illuminate Howell's explorations into creating texture, color, and imagery in sheets, which he did by combining separately beaten fibers and by following different fiber preparation procedures. Included in the panels are samples of Howell's earliest papers containing images, his "Papetries." These may be the first artworks containing images in the paper rather than paper used to support an image made with a different medium. Broadsides advertising exhibitions of what he called his "collaborations", with artists as diverse as Jackson Pollock and Albrecht Durer, underscore Howell's work with other artists. Howell considered paper which he custom made for use with a particular artist's work a collaboration with the artist because he consciously made this paper to complement the work of that specific artist. This custom paper often became an integral part of the artist's expression, as in the case of Pollock's work on Howell's paper.   Howell began making paper in New York City in a cold water flat on Grand Street, in 1946. He was setting up his studio that spring when he met his future wife, Alice Orcutt, who was moving her craft business into a studio upstairs. The large body of work he completed that year indicates Howell's early commitment to papermaking. By the end of the year Howell had designed and built his first beater; set up his Washington hand press; made the paper for and printed a book that Orcutt wrote, called Song of Magdalen; and printed broadsides of poems on his own multicolored paper, which he sold through Scribners and Brentanos. He also made the paper for and printed commercial broadsides and stationery to help finance his papermaking.   A look at the first numbered panel in the Green Box, T 1, reveals how much can be learned from looking at a single panel. This panel presents Howell's earliest papers, multicolored sheets. This paper is soft because Howell made it from cotton canvas upholstery fabric, which he regularly received through a family friend. I suspect that Howell wanted to make a soft paper to print on. His writings indicate that, after seeing printing equipment in France during the second world war, he concluded that it was possible to produce beautifully incised prints with little pressure, given the proper ink and paper.    The color of these papers comes from the stripes in the canvas. These stripes were usually shades of one color, giving the resulting paper subtle gradations in hue. Because the canvas fabric was made for outdoor furniture the dye was as lightfast as the technology then allowed. This, in turn, meant rather stable color in the papers and may have been a factor in Howell's later decision to use only vat dyed fabrics or natural fiber color in his paper. Howell did lighten his fibers and fabrics, but he never used chemical bleach. Instead he repeatedly rinsed and laid the fibers or fabrics outside, allowing the sun to bleach them.   My favorite panels display samples of flax fibers and the paper produced from those fibers. The panels include sheets Howell made from flax he grew on Long Island--one made of the flax pulled when in bloom; and another, darker paper made from flax left to weather on the ground--, along with samples of the original fibers. The same panel also shows papers made from flax grown in California. Captions on the panel indicate that Howell achieved the various shades of the California flax papers by rinsing the flax differently before beating it. Another panel features flax sheets and their beater logs, along with information on bursting strength tests.   The Green Box panels are important because they document the timeliness of Howell's contributions to hand papermaking. In the years between 1946 and 1954, Howell explored technical and aesthetic aspects of papermaking long before others became aware of hand papermaking. The American revival of hand papermaking did not begin until almost ten years later, when Lawrence Barker visited Howell at his studio and brought what he learned there back to his students at Cranbrook Academy of Art.     The original Green Box is not currently being exhibited. However, Eugenie Barron, a former student of Howell's, has created a new Green Box in the spirit of the first. She has curated a traveling exhibition, Green Box II,1 from her own collection of Howell's work, in order to foster appreciation of Howell's contributions to hand papermaking. Howell's estate has lent several of his hand-bound books, artworks, photographs, and a panel from the original Green Box to augment Barron's collection. Green Box II incorporates ten artworks, ten photographs, ten panels, and a book of notes, letters, and beater logs.   Like the original Green Box, Green Box II presents an interesting overview of Howell's diverse interests in papermaking. Samples of almost all aspects of his work can be seen: a wide range of plain papers, diverse decorative papers, papers with printing from the forties, early papers containing images, photographs of flax sculptures, flax books, printed books, samples of papers along with their beater logs, and notes and letters illuminating technical aspects of Howell's papermaking.   Green Box II spans the full length of Howell's career--from 1946, the year he first made paper, to 1984, when he closed his last studio in Westbury, New York. One panel displays early flax papers along with flax papers made more than forty years later. Another panel displays six different white linen sheets of paper, ranging from thick to thin, absorbent to hard, and translucent to opaque, illustrating the range of Howell's beating methods.   Howell's handmade papers have not been extensively exhibited. They were last shown in retrospectives at the American Craft Museum in 1982 and at the New York Public Library in 1987. Green Box II gives the viewer the rare opportunity of viewing Howell papers, many with their corresponding beater logs. The papers are both technically interesting and beautiful, and, with such a wide range, everyone is bound to find favorites.

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