They were made by skilled hands that prepared materials with sensitivity to the natural color and character of the fibers. These sheets have a combination of suppleness and strength. When held up to the light, they are well formed and even, with small imperfections that give the paper character and a lively texture. In papermaking the act of making a sheet over and over again to produce a post is meditative and exhilarating at the same time. There is an intimacy between the maker and the fiber, and these skills have been passed down since papermaking by hand took its western form in late medieval Italy. Today in hand papermaking, we have new fibers, tools, and chemicals that have expanded the field in many ways. We pursue the field of papermaking as artists and hobbyists, as well as manufacturers of a commodity. Yet, in our movement forward, are we losing the past? Fiber is central to the quality of handmade paper. Today fibers are cooked and bleached in factories and packaged as sheets of dried, semi-beaten pulp for finishing Early western and eastern papers ranging in date from 1474 to 1775. 32 HAND PAPERMAKING in our hand mills. Early papers were made from old, worn rags that were softened by handling and wear. Rags were sorted according to the whiteness, toughness, and texture into different grades. Then these different piles of rags were soaked for up to ten hours and left to ret in heaps on the floor. They were watched for weeks until the rags were weak and soft. The timing was important: too soon and the finished paper would be course or stiff; too late, the fibers would be disintegrated to the point that too much of the mass would wash away during rinsing.2 Collecting rags is not a difficult task. Once I started to save my old shirts and jeans, and got friends and family to donate their clothes, the hard part became storing them. Retting is also an easy task, though I will admit, a smelly one. I soak the rags, place them in buckets, and let time take over the processes. The amount of time varies depending on the amount and type of material and the time of year, if done outdoors. Knowing when the fiber is ready was a skill the older papermakers developed. This awareness of the material and processes only comes with experience. Historically, pulping was done by stampers, and the decision when the paper was ready was based on the look and feel of the pulp. A handful of stock had the water squeezed out of it, and the mass was broken up and fibers teased out. It was said to be ready "if short, flattened, hairy filaments, similar to a fly's legs" were seen.3 Now I would not suggest we get rid of the beaters used today, but maybe, when we use rags or other raw fibers, we should to take the time to make "fly's legs," to take samples of the slurry to check its consistency and see how quickly it drains, and to develop an eye for subtle changes in the pulp. The mould of the fifteenth century would have been strongly made with wood and brass, and meant to stand up to heavy use. The deckle would have been well fitted to the top of the frame to give a clean edge to the finished sheets. It is not surprising that the mould makers were the highest paid laborers in the paper mills. Today we have a variety of moulds for our use, but too often, the less expensive moulds lacking cross supports are used for production and for teaching. These moulds are limiting and change how the paper is formed and couched. Making paper on a well-built mould is a different experience from using a simple, stretched-screen cover over a frame. Feeling the fit of the deckle on the mould and watching the fibers of a finely beaten pulp settle around the wires of a laid surface can teach you more about the papermaker's shake than anything else can. The couch- ing action with a well-constructed mould also allows you to transfer your weight across the back of the mould in order to transfer the sheet onto the felt. With this type of mould, you develop a better feel for the actions needed in producing large amounts of paper. It is not difficult to make a sheet of paper; it is difficult to make hundreds of sheets of paper of the same weight and quality. The apprenticeship system in early papermaking would have exposed young workers to various rhythms, sights, and sounds of the mills. Sheets were formed by a three-person team: the vatman, coucher, and layer working together so they would produce from between 1,500 to 3,000 sheets a day. They used smaller moulds, measuring 13 x 18 or 18 x 24 inches, working quickly with experienced hands and bodies. Traditionally, after the sheets were pressed, they were laid out to dry by hanging them over ropes. Dried sheets would have been sized using gelatin to strengthen them and improve their surface for inks. The sheets would then have been stacked and pressed for weeks or months to flatten. Some sheets were burnished either by hand or with trip hammers to give a smooth finish. In these early mills, the work priority was to produce a utilitarian product under a quota system, so there was little time to obsess about details. This resulted in an element of spontaneity that became part of the paper's character. Today we focus on speed and perfection. We often dry paper under restraint to give a flat, smooth finish, a look similar to a machine finish. We use chemical sizing and colorants to add interest. Most of us work in small studios by ourselves, and I wonder if we produced paper with others what could happen. Would we question and speculate together about new papers and try different approaches? Would some of the old methods become more practical if the labor involved was shared? The time invested into producing a sheet of paper is manifest in its appearance and performance. LaLande, an eighteenth-century papermaking researcher, wrote that, "On studying the sequence of operations which finally produce paper, it can be seen that a sheet must pass through the workmen's hands more than thirty times, and approximately ten times under the presses."4 While we cannot recreate the mills of the early papermakers, we can explore traditional techniques and materials that can be incorporated into our own work and pass these down to future papermakers. With this approach, we will rediscover papermaking traditions and produce papers that will keep the field strong. Notes 1. Sukey Hughes, Washi: The World of Japanese Paper (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1978), 150. 2. Joseph de LaLande, The Art of Papermaking, trans. Richard M. Atkinson (Kilmurry, Ireland: The Ashling Press, 1976), 8. LaLande's Art de faire le Papier was originally published in 1761. 3. Ibid., 26. 4. Ibid., 56. Traditions become stagnant only when they fail to bear the necessary mark and changes of each generation though which they pass. They become withering shadows of what they originally stood for if their truths are not rediscovered by successive generations, who must breathe new life and meaning into them for their principles to remain significant. This means that tradition, to continue as tradition, cannot allow the threads of its structure to stiffen and petrify. Tradition is a strong, resilient warp through which the new and living vision of each generation is woven. —Sukey Hughes, 19781