Twenty years is not such a long time but it has been a period of abundance in marbling and related fields. Those that wondered how to marble or how to make paper early in the 1970s have become the teachers of the 1990s. Many of those who came to the field in the 1980s are now firmly established in their careers and have begun to teach a" well. Workshops and classes all over the country have created a bonanza of papermakers and paper decorators. The recent wealth of instruction has been made richer becaUSe of the increasing acceptance of book arts in university-level course work. From experimentation and time comes the art itself. Hand Papermaking's recent portfolio, DeS/A': and Pattern in Decorated Papers: Wet and Dry Techniques, represents not only some of the~2 artists and their students but also recent trends in the art of decorated paper.  One of my greatest pleasures in the twenty-seven years I have been at the Uni\'ersity of Washington Libraries has been to see the number of books on paper and paper decoration, especially marbling, go from a handful-usually out of print and expensive-to dozens. Most of the older published writing about decorated papers focuseon dry techniques, particularly paper marbling. Historically, European decorated papers have been a detail of books: endsheets, covers, and. infrequently illustration. \\ 'c:   Design produced using a Japanese katagami stencil, usually used in textile dyeing, on a handmade  100% kozo sheet. Paper and design by Richard Flavin.  techniques, when written about at all, have been only a very small part of a larger body of work on handmade paper.  As technical information on how to make paper and decorate it has been passed down, historians are linked generation to generation. A copy of Rosamond Bowditch Loring's Decorated Book Papers was my introduction, given to me by my mentor, Robert Monroe. Phoebe Jane Easton, in Marbling (1983), credits Loring with first tracing marbling history and feels Loring's work "cannot be improved upon, only fleshed out and brought up to date" (p. 33). The first edition of Loring (1942), known for its samples of surface decorated papers from 1730 to 1940, was limited to 250 copies and sold for $10.00. It was out of print in six months.  A second edition appeared in 1952 (two years after Loring had died at the age of 79), containing tribute essays by Philip Hofer, Dard Hunter, Walter Whitehill, and Veronica Ruzicka. The book contained one of the first readily available descriptions of marbling and formulas for paste papers. Loring's research threw a bright light on a subject "of which little notice has been taken in the past" (Loring, p. ix). Surely she would be thrilled with the books following her pioneering work, as well as with Hand Papermaking's portfolio. Hunter, who had known Loring for sixteen years, said Loring "worked hard, long and with a zeal and earnestness that stimulated and inspired everyone around her."  It is to Dard Hunter, more than any other figure, that modern hand papermakers owe their inspiration. Hunter knew no bounds in his interests, documenting techniques worldwide. His travels and books have been the catalyst for many. Often it is still to Hunter that we turn to get dates, names, and places of the history of paper.  Hunter, too, would have found the number of paper artists today very encouraging. In My Life With Paper (1958, p. 3) Hunter says: "I have long been an advocate of hand craftsmanship and have struggled against mass-production methods, but my efforts have beenno more effectual than the exertions of a lone termite in a petrified forest." The recent renaissance of all the book arts, especially hand papermaking, has proved Hunter's disappointment needless.  SUMMER 1995  How wonderful it would have been to watch Loring and Hunter look at papers together, trading extras of her European decorated samples for his Asian papers. But, although many of us have missed knowing these artist-scholars in person, their work lights the way for all who come after. We have been able to meet and learn from those who took the mantle from them. Many have "fleshed out" the field. to use Easton's words, but, unfortunately, only a fe\\ can be mentioned here.  Henry Morris' Bird & Bull Press has published more influential works on papermaking and decorated paper than anyone else. A welcome demystification began with Bird & Bull's reprint of James Sumner's Mysterious Marbler (1976), containing notes and samples by Richard J. Wolfe, a leading historian and an accomplished marbler. In addition to his trade book, Marbled Papers (1990), Wolfe can be credited with several important limited edition books oi original research and knowledgeable translations of pivotal texts.  Muir Dawson, long-time Los Angeles bookseller, has been an admirer of decorated paper for many years. His encouragement of Christopher Weimann in the mid-1970s resulted in two fine limited edition sample books, one printed by Bird & Bull. Meeting Chris in 1978 proved to me that my contemporaries were talented marblers. Unfortunately Chris died of cancer in 1988 at the age of 42, a substantial loss to the  marbling community. He left behind good research and truly stunning papers. Easton's Marbling, the first historic overview and manual since Loring, was also published by Dawson in 1983. Contrary to her own feelings about Loring's work, quoted above, Easton expanded knowledge enormously.  Iris Nevins has written several very useful trade books on paper and fabric marbling and a limited edition work, Varieties of Spanish Marbling (1991), done, again, by Bird & Bull Press. The Plough Press and Oak Knoll Books have also been supportive publishers. Both Don Guyot (1988) and Anne Chambers (1991) have brought suminagashi, the Japanese marbling technique, out of the shadows of the twelfth century with bench manuals on the subject. Polly Fox edits Ink and Gall, a journal specializing in information on all types of marbling, first published in 1987.  A major work in the field which includes other types of decorated paper is Buntpapier, by Albert Haemmerle (1977). Paper collectors and historians Hans and Tanya Schmoller did much to document decorated papers in the way Hunter had decades before. Henry Morris, in Roller-Printed Paste Papers (1 975), gave paste formulas and detailed instructions. In 1989, Anne Chambers' trade book, Guide to Making Decorated Papers, also helped fill the void.  Decoration created on the wet paper sheet starts with a basic understanding of hand papermaking. Again, the number of publications on papermaking has skyrocketed in the last twenty years. Unfortunately printed technical information on creating decorated paper during sheet forming is limited, the main exception be- Sheet formed nagashizuki-style of pure kozo fiber, on a screen covered with a kimono stencil, by Marilyn Wold. (Sheet is shown against a dark background to heighten the image.)  ing this journal. The resurgence of hand papermaking can be traced primarily through a genealogy of papermakers and their apprentices. Most knowledge is shared through workshops, classes, conferences, correspondence, and telephone calls. Beginners must find a teacher to put them on the right path or spend much time experimenting.  Hand papermaking has been influenced by the conservation field, with research into paper fiber, beating techniques, and sheet forming. The long history of wet paper decoration in Japan has also inspired many paper artists, as seen in several samples in Hand Papermaking's portfolio.  We owe thanks to a core of dedicated people: researchers, papermakers, printers, publishers, paper decorators, chemists, collectors, and other addicts. Each of these has a full time job and marbles at night, or has spent twenty-five years researching before anyone cared, or against the odds publishes a journal on an obscure subject like papermaking or marbling. Anyone who spends their lives listening to a beater throbbing, standing for hours in wet shoes and soggy socks, leaning over a vat until "breaking back" is a term understood deep in the bones, or picking chiri in freezing water as a vacation-surely that person has the papermaker's sickness.  Design and Pattern in Decorated Papers celebrates the renewal of forms once considered dying arts, now flourishing with several specialized journals, meetings which bring together expert and novice, workshops every weekend, and a growing body of published work. Included are decoration techniques created in forming the paper while it is still wet and surface decoration done after the paper is dry. Every sample uses handmade paper. Artists who work in wet techniques process their fiber and make their paper, sometimes being both farmer and papermaker. Those that emplo dry techniques may spend years finding the best paper; others use handmade paper here for the first time.  The artists who participated in Hand Papermaking's portfolio are known by a small group of people intent on expanding appreciation of this speciality. They come to paper decoration to serve very different needs. Some create paper and paper designs to be used in other art work. Several create images intended to stand alone. The papers have at least one common aspect, though: a three dimensionality which takes the flat sheet and adds new character to it. Whether in natural tones or in fanciful col- HA, D PAPER.\4AKlNG  10   ors, the work has depth and tension between one surface and another. You can peer through it or dive into it.   Each paper in this portfolio has an aesthetic impact. Where fiber is emphasized, the fact that paper is paper is especially important. Subtle tones are created by using natural dyes or colors which imitate them. In the University of Iowa Center for the Book (UICB) walnut-dyed paper which James Downey picked to decorate, few would have seen a base for marbling, but it works beautifully. The marbling blends with the paper and does not fight it; the color floats and changes depth with position in light.  By embedding plants and then doing suminagashi, Gloria Zmolek Smith captures a wave breaking on the shore, bringing in bits of seaweed with the tide. Kathy Crump successfully incorporates the exposed California landscape and twisted vegetation on burnt hills in her Ventana Hide Paper. This paper has the sturdiness of Japanese paper meant for clothing or cushion covers.  Other artists reflect the natural world through shape or decorative pattern. Margaret Sahlstrand uses UICB paper to heavily emboss the image of delicate native Northwest lilies, evoking the rich forest floor. Here the depth is so pronounced that I might try to pick up a leaf to see what is under it. Richard Flavin decorates his own paper with an antique stencil wave design, suggesting suminagashi and wood block printing, with extraordinary movement. The paper of Marilyn Wold is magic, both new and old at once, perfectly done in kozo. Also using an old Japanese stencil, Wold forms the paper with it rather than using it as Flavin does, for surface design.  Japanese surface design techniques influence the work of Bridget O'Malley as well. She crumples and walnut dyes her raw flax paper, leaving a dark veined pattern, reminiscent of early photogenic drawing. O'Malley's paper, while decorated after the sheet is created, is dependent on her fine quality base sheet.  Paper can balance an image as if in air. Sharon Morehouse's base sheet of abaca and kozo almost disappears and the embedded plum leaves float in a misty rain. The leaves that Neal Bonham creates are just as real, shadows trapped forever in a swirl, with extraordinary dimension in the layered pulp. Dana Draper and Ingrid Butler Draper use Tom Leech's black handmade paper, which causes the marbled and painted images to hang, encouraging the circles to become part of the night sky.  SUMMER 1995  Sample made by Bobbie Lippman, one of the twenty-two artists included in Hand Papermaking's portfolio of decorated papers. The base sheet is formed on a 19" x 25" wove mould, from cot/on rag which Lippman beats for an hour and a half in a Noble and Wood five-pound Hollander beater. She gives the paper a ql;ick press, which removes enough water to allow her to work on the surface without damaging the sheet. Using cot/on rag which she has beaten for three hours (to cut the fibers very short) and colored with aqueous dispersed pigments, she then applies the pattern to the base sheet. Lippman presses the papers again and dries them under pressure in a forced-air drying system.   Other papers combine natural and manufactured colors to create drama. Luster pigments made with minerals produce a moment in the sunset or a second of moonlight through the water. Donna Koretsky's 682  'iolet stars on a black surface sheet trap lightning bugs. Sukinagashishi is the technique used in David Kim ball's paper, a design created in fiber rather than  . Here luster pigments in the upper surface of the laminate create a series of sparkling eddies in the tide of pulp.  orne aspects of a traditional Spanish marble are combined with unusual pattern and bright acrylic colOTS by Polly Fox on Michael Parsons' pina (pineapple eaf) paper to create a vivid design. The surface of the tank moves, the rise and fall of the water captured forever on paper. Don Guyot's papers are represented in vo forms. One is light and airy. The colors layer in ne. Drawing the colors, Guyot's arcs geyser and the tone changes to liquid before our eyes and then returns to stone. The other sample is cool and hard; the 'one pattern is untouched, still waiting for the move ent \ hich may come.  The paper Richard Hungerford has created is a ticker tape parade all by itself. The brightly colored ulp, the colors of clown costumes, seems gaily tossed the air. There is a blur of circus performers and I ,'ear I can hear calliopes. In contrast, the gold used Peggy Skycraft in her Galaxy paper lends a sensual quality, with a slow, exotic movement. The viewer can actuall see the metallic oil float on the dampened  per' surface. Sk craft's work with textiles carries over to this paper and there are hints of saris and the ell of incense.  The paste paper of Susan Kristoferson combines metallic, fluorescent, and iridescent acrylics to create a very painterly sheet. The hand of the artist is more obvious in this paper than many here. The surface colors move from one to another like overlapping flood lights with the texture of the paste creating shadows. There is a ceremonial quality, structured and chosen, to the paper by Virginia Buchan and Nora Ligorano of Lost Link Designs. The color and pattern evoke formal gardens, perhaps even a traditional English maze, with a sparkle of rain.  In Bobbie Lippman's paper, pulp swirls in a pattern very reminiscent of marbling; it is a snowstorm of color. The tight curls create a surprising amount activity in the sheet and there is an explosive quality. Annie Wilcox amazes us with her beautiful marbled paper pulp and creates a link with the marbled Turkish flowers of the past. It is to the future Wendy Franklund Miller's work looks. The exciting jumble of color and form, dark on light, is particularly three-dimensionaL I had to touch the surface of the paper to be sure it was flat.  Even though this portfolio may encourage us, we cannot breathe a sigh of relief feeling there will always be people who will make and decorate paper, create books, and collect. Each of us has the responsibility to nurture, teach, purchase, create, and savor. Never should we be satisfied with where we are. We cannot have too many paper decorators or papermakers or bookbinders. Where there are those who try, there are those who care. We cannot be satisfied with what we accomplish but must always look forward to those who will see paper for the first time in these samples. They will then carryon what we now shoulder. The time is so short. Share what you know now, as these artists have done. Talk to each other, exchange ideas, and reveal secrets, because we have no future if you do not.  Because I live in the Pacific Northwest, I can identify with Dard Hunter's image of a termite in the forest and am sorry he did not live to see the future of hand papermaking. Unlike Hunter, I stand in a healthy, living forest, small though it may be, and can admire the beauty of each individual tree, feeling assured that the forest is in no danger of petrification, or of clear-cut.  The pereceding text is adapted from an essay which appeared in the portfolio of decorated papers, Design and Pattern in Decorated Papers: Wet and Dry Techniques, which Hand Papermaking, Inc. produced in 1994.  HA. D PAPE.RMA 'G  i 11

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