As paper and book artist Brian Dettmer says, "We don't need paper the way we used to. It is now unemployed and looking for work."1 By the 1980s, educational and cultural institutions in Europe and the United States began establishing papermaking laboratories, offering majors in paper art, and mounting paper art exhibitions. These efforts have served to increase the number of artists who understand the properties of paper and express themselves through paper art. To develop a similar movement in China, it is now the responsibility of Chinese universities to establish research fields related to paper art. Commissioned by the Academy of Arts & Design of Tsinghua University (清华大学美术学院), the Department of Visual Communication Design officially started to build a paper art laboratory in 2004. The Department aimed to explore modern paper art by combining advanced technologies and ideas from overseas with Chinese traditional papermaking processes and culture. Bill Drendel was the first international paper and book artist to be invited to teach at the department. He has visited twice to teach paper and book arts, in 2001 and 2008, respectively. He made valuable suggestions and provided specific assistance during the construction of the paper laboratory and the development of the course syllabi in the early stages. On Drendel's recommendation, paper artist and sculptor Amanda Degener came to the Academy to teach in 2009 and 2013. Degener assisted in bringing in a Hollander beater, a central piece of equipment in the department's paper art laboratory. top row: Amanda Degener demonstrates pulp painting and walnut dyeing to the paper art students, 2013. center row: Bill Drendel, with students, and teaching with Zhao Jian in the paper and book art course, 2008. bottom: Cao Jianqin, technical advisor for the paper art laboratory at the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, making xuan paper. The main components of the paper art course involve basic papermaking technologies and methods for creative expression in handmade paper that are commonly used in foreign countries, such as suminagashi and pulp painting, as well as making artist books. The students who take the course also learn the similarities and differences of paper in Chinese and foreign contexts. In addition to courses led by international instructors, the department established a cooperative relationship in 2013 with Caoshi Xuan Paper (曹氏宣纸) in Anhui province and employed Cao Jianqin (曹建勤), a member of the twenty-seventh-generation family who runs paper mill. He serves as the department's laboratory technical advisor and offers authentic, traditional hand-papermaking courses, including the study of Chinese traditional papermaking culture and paper art expressions. The development of paper art in China requires that we learn advanced technologies while at the same time we derive nourishment from Chinese traditional papermaking culture. As one of the four great inventions of China, paper has played a tremendous role in the inheritance and development of Chinese civilization. In the third to fourth century, paper replaced bamboo and wood as the main writing material for Chinese.2 In addition, paper is still widely used in daily life in China, for items such as paper fans, paper umbrellas, and paper kites. Despite paper's broad and deep roots within China, our use and exploitation of it still fall short. That is partly because paper plays a relatively mature and fixed role in Chinese culture. During the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127 ce), paper was an important part of the life of literati and it was honored as one of the Four Treasures of the Study, together with the writing brush, ink, and the ink stone.3 These all played an important role in forming Chinese calligraphy and painting. Mi Fu (米芾), a calligrapher and painter (1051–1107 ce), valued Student paper art work (a quilt of China) during Amanda Degener's course in 2013. paper of his period for its excellent quality: smooth and white with fine ink absorption.4 Lianshi (连史纸) paper made in Fujian province in the Ming Dynasty was also honored as "white and thin, with good water imbibition."5 Such descriptions of paper's transparency, smoothness, thickness, and color indicate that Chinese society highly regarded uniformity and stability of paper for the purposes of calligraphy and painting. This long-held aesthetic view resulted in the singular use and expression of paper and effectively limited the artist's attention to and exploration of the paper itself. To expand the language of paper in China, it is important and urgent to combine the ideas of paper art from other nations with an understanding of paper's roots in traditional Chinese culture. Timehonored hand-papermaking technologies should not only be preserved in museums as an intangible cultural heritage; they can also provide rich sustenance for contemporary art. In this way, Chinese paper art can truly step onto the modern road. ___________ notes 1. Paradise of Paper Art (Hong Kong: DesignerBooks, 2013). 2. Qian Cunxun (钱存训), Chinese Paper and Printing: A Cultural History (Zhong Guo Zhi He Yin Shua Wen Hua Shi), edited by Zheng Rusi (郑如斯). Guangxi Normal University Press, May 2004. 3. Su Yijian (苏易简), Wen Fang Si Pu, (Song Dynasty), translated and annotated by Zeng Minhua (曾敏华) and Geng Jipeng (耿纪朋). Chongqing: Chongqing Publishing House, 2010. 4. Mi Fu Shu Fa Shi Liao Ji, edited by Shui Laiyou (水赉佑). Shanghai Normal University Presses, December 2009. 5. Liu Renqing (刘仁庆), Chinese Handmade Paper for Painting and Calligraphy (Zhong Guo Shu Hua Zhi) (Beijing: China WaterPower Press, October 2007).
