Claire had worked at their Whiting studio on large scale pulp paintings, for which she has become well known. She said that they were "honest, reliable, and fun to work with" as well as "real artists," which sounded like a solid recommendation to me. Although I had not previously had a chance to meet them, I had heard that there were two first-rate papermakers living in eastern Maine who had moved there from Indiana. (Bernie had been an associate of Twinrocker Handmade Papers and Katie had worked as an apprentice there, before they moved to Maine in 1982.) We met for lunch in a little downtown cafe just around the corner from my Bangor studio, and right away I knew that I had encountered two individuals of lively intelligence and grace. Bernie's earnestness and Katie's quick wit formed a definite balance, and one could easily see how these two distinct individuals could maintain a work relationship as well as a marriage. We talked about art, winter in Maine, local politics, meaningful work, mutual friends, finances and scheduling, the history of Bangor, the life-world of Shakespeare, and papermaking as an art; as well as the specific paper needed for King Lear. When we were discussing the book, we spoke in a careful, detailed manner about possible fiber content, surface texture, dimension of the overall sheet, deckle, sizing, fold and tear strength, weight, and color. We also focused on how these details would be important to the aesthetic configuration of the book as a whole. Katie, who is in charge of color formulas, could then start on small color samples as an initial step. That afternoon went by with amazing speed and before we knew it the sky was darkening. Our meeting was certainly an auspicious beginning for both a book and a friendship. King Lear was to be a folio-size book of 135 pages. It would require over four thousand sheets of consistent 22" x 30" paper to complete the 160 copies in the edition. Claire Van Vliet was to design the binding and cut thirty-nine woodblocks, which would be printed at her Janus Press in Vermont, after I had completed printing the text in Bangor. As it turned out, the text needed a year and a half to handset and print; Claire needed another six months for cutting and printing her woodcuts, and work on the binding lasted throughout the whole two years. (The July 1989 issue of Fine Print contains Claire's detailed article on the binding.) During the first year of production, Katie and Bernie delivered neatly wrapped packages of paper to my studio in Bangor, or I drove to Whiting to pick up a batch of newly-made paper. Before delivery, the paper was sorted into exact thicknesses and always carefully curated to remove imperfect sheets. MacGregor-Vinzani "Lear" paper is made of long fibered cotton, medium warm-grey in color, somewhat rough in texture, with a controlled deckle edge, and of heavy text weight. The rhythm of cutting paper, typesetting, and printing went very smoothly throughout that first year of work. Bernie and Katie were able to keep ahead of my printing, so I never found myself waiting for paper. With all hand work there are problems and mysteries that emerge, but Katie and Bernie faced and solved any such problems in papermaking without my direct involvement. Thus, by attending to their part of the book's production with complete competence, they allowed me to concentrate on my own set of mysteries, involving the editorial, design, and printing dimensions of the work at hand. Only Mother Nature Herself interfered a bit with the papermaking, first with an August drought that slowed production and then with a forest fire that threatened to burn down the town of Whiting. Bernie is a volunteer fire fighter, so his responsibilities were outside the studio for a week or so, as black specks filled the air. After much effort, the fire was finally brought under control just outside the village. The papermaking studio at that time occupied the first floor of the house which Bernie and Katie had built along a semi-discontinued county road. The house occupies high ground on a section of coastal plain that juts eastward into the Bay of Fundy. This region has remarkable primordial natural beauty, as well as perennial economic problems. This is also a part of Maine that is somewhat hard to move into, since New England reticence, combined with the severe winter climate, can discourage those of unsteady commitment. We completed King Lear in November 1986. In the years that followed, Katie and Bernie have remained my friends and colleagues. In one way or another they have been involved in all of my subsequent books. With each new book, they asked important questions, suggested possible directions, encouraged me in meaningful ways, and allowed themselves to try new ideas and procedures with a sense of curiosity and craft. If anything the paper they made for me became much more complex. The range of work broadened from the large-scale production of text-weight paper to the creation of loft-dried, heavily pigmented cover papers, abaca binding paper, paper with colored-pulp inclusions, and multiple pulp painted sheets. The pulp painted sheets were for an edition of Dido and Aeneas, an opera by Henry Purcell, co-published by Janus Press and my Theodore Press/Sarah Books. The requirements were such that the six sets of 160 pulp painted and irregularly shaped sheets (i.e., 960 sheets in all) needed to be tightly consistent for subsequent letterpress printing on both sides of some of the sheets. As varied as the work with Theodore Press/Sarah Books has been, these papers are only a small part of MacGregor-Vinzani's total production. Katie and Bernie have made many kinds and colors of text paper, large-scale pulp paintings, pulp paintings for subsequent printing from etched plates, custom watermarked papers, paper of various kinds for their own artwork, abaca paper in a range of exact harmonious hues, and technically exacting conservation papers. They have developed these papers and others for letterpress printers, bookbinders, conservators, calligraphers, printmakers, and other artists. What I find remarkable is not only how precise and consistently well-crafted all this work is, but how richly personal the paper is in appearance and in touch. Fiber selection, beating, sheet-forming, couching, pressing, and drying are all done with firm integrity of material and process, and with evident sensitivity to what the finished sheet is to be. For me this aesthetic completeness is what distinguishes the work of the best contemporary papermakers, who have shifted from the old industrial papermill mindset to a way of working which allows for a greater variety and depth of artistic craftwork. These days when I visit the Whiting studio, I am greeted by the broadly smiling face of Paul MacGregor Vinzani, a preschooler who is a Prodigious Charmer. Bernie has built a new studio which is attached to the main house. The studio is 20' x 36', with a concrete floor, large windows and skylights, plenty of headroom, a viewing loft, a drying room, and a sound-insulated room for the beater. All aspects of this work space have been designed for convenience and safety, and a new well has been drilled for a more reliable supply of naturally buffered water. The downstairs of the main house has now been remodelled into living space, with office, library, and storage areas set apart. A Vandercook printing press in the side storage room is used for occasional printing projects. From the house and studio one can walk along a path through the surrounding forest to a high point on the back edge of the property and look across the plain towards the ocean to the east. As every committed papermaker knows, papermaking is very demanding work, and the studio is most often quite busy. Yet, in this rural setting, time is measured by season as well as by minutes and hours, so the garden is weeded, the firewood is split and stacked, the house is repaired and maintained, and the gravel road is tended, as papermaking continues.
