Andrea Peterson: What was your first encounter with paper? Do you recall that experience? Marilyn Sward: It was as an undergraduate painting major at the University of Illinois - Urbana. I was interested in strange paper surfaces, like paper towels. After I graduated, my interest in paper and unusual surfaces grew. I wanted a more textured, tactile surface. I used plaster on paper, which was exciting. Phyllis Bramson, known as a Chicago imagist, and I made blender paper out of Christmas cards. It was really textured; I loved it. Slowly the handmade paper crept in. A very early piece was a quilt sewn of handmade papers with photo images. AP: What do you believe to be the running theme of your work? How has the exploration of the papermaking process played into that theme? MS: Certain forms, like the cylinder, have always come into the pieces. Currently I am working with the cylinder in the form of a tree. I want the audience to be a part of the work and to have a sense of an energy flow. You and I are here talking—an exchange of energy and feeling. I feel we are all part of a larger cosmic sense. Being in contact with the natural environment gives us the ability to know and receive energy. I feel if you are in a place like a city, your sense of touch is much different. Papermaking is a physical experience using natural materials that I feel connected to. AP: Can you reflect upon your personal experience of your land in the north woods of Wisconsin versus the hubbub of Chicago?  MS: My home in northern Wisconsin is outside a small town, St. Germain. The house sits on a hill at the edge of a large lake. When I depart Chicago, driving, there is a release from the city. It takes about six hours to get there. Pines surround my studio, so I named it Pinecroft Studio. The scent of the pines hangs in the air. This place brings a calm to me. I spend time in my garden, studio, on the lake, and I focus in a different way. I spend my summer immersed in this place and I am also able to come up during the school year. I bring this calm back to Chicago, into the classroom, my projects, and artwork. Chicago provides the opposite end of the spectrum. The action, sounds, and the sometimes-crazy pace are just as much a part of my experience of being. I respect both places for what they share with me. AP: Let's get back to the cylinders, the trees. MS: The cylinder is a component, a form that can reinvent itself. Sort of being recycled. The tree is a source of natural energy in our world, very much a part of mine. Treewhispers (treewhispers.com) is a project that Chicago artist Pam Paulsrud and I are working on now. It connects people. The structures are trees made of round handmade paper with tree stories and images. We want people to think about trees, their connections and environmental concerns. AP: Where did Paper Press fit into all of this? MS: The work I exhibited was more and more about paper and less and less about drawing. I had to explain it to people every step of the way. No one knew that paper could be made by an artist. Soon I was traveling around with my work, having exhibitions and demonstrating the process. I was extremely serious. I wanted better quality and I devoured old books and bought volumes on mills and pulp technology. An artist friend of mine, Linda Sorkin, came to take a class in my tiny studio and convinced me that, with her financial support, we could have a more viable studio. This occurred in the spring of 1980. We looked for space and found an old laundry in Evanston that had a group of potters on the first floor. We did not think they would be too critical of a leak or two.  Then we needed a beater. Another artist, Sherry Healy (now Sherry Giryotas), said she would put in some money and I thought we could sell pulp "futures" to raise the rest. We formed a not-for-profit corporation called Paper Press. We traveled around testing beaters with a bucket of cut-up terry cloth towels. We decided the Valley beater was the best and we drove to Appleton, Wisconsin, to pick one up. Dozens of people had joined the cause by pre-purchasing pulp and soon they came to redeem their coupons. That beater was busy.  Many people began to come and use the studio, and we started to offer classes. Karen Stahlacker was a graduate student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago then, and she became a partner for a while. When she graduated, she convinced the fiber department to offer papermaking as a class taught at our facility. She taught the class for several years. She was followed by Rick Hungerford, and then I took over the class in 1990. Paper Press needed larger space and we wanted to be in the city. So, three years after our founding, we moved to an old loft building on Jackson Street, near the Chicago & Northwestern Train station. We personally built the walls and built tables that would keep the water off the floor; we still had no floor drains. We killed ourselves with work. One year later they told us the building was to be torn down. We almost folded but we were providing a service by then to dozens of professional artists. Once again, we went looking for a space. This time we found a basement with ground-level windows and floor drains. We had enough capital to hire a friend to build walls. We opened in the heart of the soon-to-be-booming River North gallery district. We had a gallery, studio space, artist rental space, and a pulp preparation area. We wrote grants for special programs for artists, children, and traveling exhibitions. We had a professional video done of our operations and attracted more members and students. It was a busy and amazing time.  The three of us had teenage children and we dreaded any phone calls that requested Mrs. Sward, Mrs. Sorkin, or Mrs. Healy. That signaled kid trouble. We were rolling along, each doing our own work as well. I was president of Artists Residents of Chicago, a women's co-op gallery, and then joined Van Straten Gallery to show my work. By this time I was making large scroll installation pieces. I was still interested in perfecting my craft and received a grant to attend the International Paper Conference in Kyoto, Imadate, Kuradani, and Kochi. I was privileged when I was in Japan to work with many papermakers and to absorb the spirit of the people and their love of my adopted craft. The wonderful old River North warehouse had caught a developer's eye and our rent was about to triple. So Paper Press moved again. This time we landed on West Jackson near the University of Illinois, in the old Singer Sewing Machine building. We thought it appropriate that we should be in what was once a female sweatshop. Paper Press flourished in this location for many years. We taught classes, rented space to individual artists, and had university classes for students from Columbia College, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the University of Illinois, Chicago.  AP: What was happening with your own work during this development of Paper Press? MS: A group of us were trying to find ways to exhibit paper as art. It was just not understood in that context. We formed Chicago Paper, an organization dedicated to promoting the work of several people. Whenever any of us went to a gallery we took the group exhibit book and together we arranged shows across the United States, in Mexico, and in Europe. During this time I was working with photographer Catherine Reeve, experimenting with coating my hand-formed paper with photographic emulsions. We wrote an article on our techniques and later wrote a book, called The New Photography. I continue to be known for my work in this area. I am fascinated with paper capturing light, gathering it in, and allowing an image to appear—alchemy and magic. AP: When you started Paper Press did you ever envision a place like Columbia College Chicago Center for the Book and Paper Arts? MS: Yes and no. Of course you can't predict the future but we wanted to continue with the work and projects we had started, and serve more students and artists. In 1993 a group was formed to consider a single center for book and paper arts in Chicago. I joined, hoping to find a more stable home for our twelve-year-old "baby." The plan was to combine our facility with Artists' Book Works and find a new home. I used my long association with Columbia College to suggest that the college undertake this venture. Much to our amazement, they agreed. We were off in search of space again. We formed the Book and Paper Center as we now know it, at 218 South Wabash Avenue, in the Loop of downtown Chicago. We were there for six years. This seemed to be the magic duration for a space for us and I was soon looking for movers once again. My desk was covered with blueprints. The Center was moving into the historic Ludington building, a landmark building newly purchased by Columbia College. The Center now occupies the entire second floor, twenty thousand square feet. This allows plenty of space for our Master of Fine Arts program in book and paper arts, and a much expanded exhibition program.  AP: How is it to juggle two careers: Art Administrator and Professional Artist? MS: They feed into each other. Part of my creative energy is about working with others in collaborative projects whether it is creating the MFA program or developing treewhispers with Pam. The Center and the treewhispers project are their own entities. They have—and I want them to have—a life of their own. I believe they need this to live and grow. I come in, discuss, encourage, rearrange, suggest, and make a mark; this is my interaction with their existence. Part of creativity is making things happen so others may experience their creativity. AP: Yes, you are good at making things happen. Can you tell us a few examples of this outside of the Center? MS: I've organized student study trips in my role as Adjunct Associate Professor for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. These trips have allowed me to study papermaking with my students in Japan, Indonesia, Brazil, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. I have also taught at several summer arts camps, like Haystack.  AP: You have stepped down as Director at the Center. What is currently on your plate? MS: The treewhispers project is getting bigger and traveling. Sue Gosin, of Dieu Donné Papermill in New York City, and I are currently working on the Hunter-Howell Fellowship. Sue and I see this as the next step for the evolution of hand papermaking, very similar to the way Tamarind works for printers. Also, at the Center in August of 2002 we will be hosting the IAPMA (International Association for Paper Makers and Paper Artists) Conference, and I am always working on the National Collegiate Paper Exhibition.  AP: Marilyn, I want to thank you. I know all of this energy and spirit came out of your simple passion for one thing: paper.