As early as 1969, the Whitney Museum and the Guggenheim showed his artwork in important painting and drawing exhibitions. Shields exhibited his three-dimensional, off-the-wall grid paintings at Paula Cooper Gallery in New York City along with other notable artists such as Sol LeWitt and Joel Shapiro. However, Shields' work, though grounded in geometry, was neither cool nor minimalist, but engaging and complex. What is unique to Shields' work, in the diversity and combinations of mediums he explored, is his playful use of materials and joyful range of color. Art critic Robert Hughes reminisced at Alan's memorial held at Paula Cooper Gallery on January 25, 2006, "Whether fishing or making art, Alan had a wonderful sense of what the hand can do; he was an exceptional colorist." Alan Shields grew up on a farm in Kansas where he became as accustomed to using his mother's sewing machine as his father's farm tools. He began his education at Kansas State University by studying engineering but gravitated to the theater and the visual art department. He brought his childhood background, engineering training, and theatrical flair to his art. His portable constructions reflect his understanding of structure while they project the vitality of a traveling circus rather than the formality of traditional painting or sculpture. I first met Alan in 1974 when he was collaborating with Bill Weege and Joe Wilfer in Wisconsin. Alan came into town with a hippie glamour and an entourage which included an unknown actress, Jessica Lange. For a number of years, Alan and Bill had been crossing boundaries and breaking all the rules of fine printmaking in their collaborations. With Joe Wilfer's help, Alan added hand papermaking to his repertoire of media, absorbing every technique from pulp painting to multiple laminations. As he assimilated a working knowledge of hand papermaking, he focused on the tools of the craft, stretching the definition In Memoriam: Alan Shields susan gosin alan shields (1944–2005) Photo: Bill Milne. Courtesy of Dieu Donné Papermill, New York. Equatorial Route, 1986, 47 inches diameter, relief, screenprint, woodcut. Courtesy of Tyler Graphics Ltd., Mount Kisco, New York. Fan Dance, 1977, 17 x 21 ½ inches, relief, screenprint, lithograph, stitching on handmade paper. Produced at Upper US Paper Mill. Photo: Gary J. Manay. Courtesy of Victoria Shields. summer 2006 - 35 of the mould and playing with the concept of the watermark. He developed a signature method of constructing wire structures which he dipped into paper pulp and painted. He often laminated colored, translucent "lacework-like" sheets on top of each other to create multi-layered images. In 1977, he began working with Ken Tyler with whom he developed a new range in the partnership between paper and print. Over the course of a decade, Shields and Tyler worked in the United States and Japan. Ken Tyler recently shared these thoughts: "Alan Shields was one of the foremost artists working with handmade paper since the early 1960s. His ingenious methods, of using multimedia to conjure up layers of printed and colored pulp into colorful paper works, were boundless. He loved collaboration and used his wit, humor, and unique craft talents to make every project an exciting art experience. Alan believed in making his art accessible. His wearable art took the form of beadwork, painted fingernails, or printed fabrics. He also transformed gardens with his constructions, which he did at his home and studio, and also in Japan at the gardens of the Center for Contemporary Graphic Art and the Tyler Graphics Archive Collection (CCGA & TGAC). During exhibitions of his works on and of paper at CCGA & TGAC, Alan won great admiration and became a celebrity, not only for his work, but also for the workshops he led in conjunction with the shows. In these teaching extravaganzas, he and his students converted CCGA's formal gardens into beaded and fantastical living sculpture. All of his many Japanese friends and certainly we are forever grateful." In 1999, Alan Shields was commissioned by Dieu Donné Papermill in New York City to create new work in honor of the organization's twenty-fifth anniversary. During the many months he worked in the studio with Paul Wong (an old Wisconsin friend), Shields created an extraordinary body of two- and three-dimensional art. His enthusiastic embrace of the collaboration was matched by an equal appreciation by those who viewed the traveling show. Alan often accompanied the openings with a suitcase of colorful, pulp-dipped wire logs and "chips," inviting on-the-spot participation in the assembly of a new work of art. In recent years, Alan began filming this playful and evocative process, animating the wire and pulp elements to form patterns of movement onscreen. I last visited with Alan this past summer at his studio on Shelter Island, New York. As we walked through the yard, there was evidence of his richly varied life, not only as an artist, but also as a fisherman, gardener, and ferryboat captain. Had it not been for the vitality of this bareheaded and fully bearded artist, the veritable kaleidoscope of forty years of making art from everything under the sun would have overwhelmed a less colorful man. Instead, Alan stood as an actor on a stage of his own making, illuminated by the radiant colors of his hand-painted beads that draped his neck. We will miss deeply this technicolor man, but we are lucky to have his imaginative and enduring art to remind us of his joie de vivre. How Does a Dog Dance, 2000, 14 x 14 x 14 inches, watercolor on translucent abaca pulp-dipped galvanized steel armature, ball-bearing fishing swivel. Photo: Jean Vong. Courtesy of Dieu Donné. Alan Shields at his sewing machine. Courtesy of Tyler Graphics Ltd., Mount Kisco, New York.