It is a time when a general conservative retreat and a desparate attempt to keep the artificial economics of the art world on an upward spiral produces tendencies of two extremes. The first is the development of a continuing need to create art that is more and more outrageous, to top that of last season and create a need for replacement as occurs in the world of high fashion. The second extreme is a return to the traditional hierarchy of painting and sculpture. (3) This hierarchy establishes a clearer pecking order for importance and therefore for prices at a time when the arts have otherwise diversified to the point that the trends are much harder to control. (4) This is a time of overcorrection for the concerns of the seventies, which emphasized individual capability and sought a return to the touch of the hand, a reappreciation for the handcrafted object, the conservation of the environment, the preservation of the individual spirit, and renewed interest in the spiritual. In contrast, the eighties have been a time of materialism, glitz, supra-sophistication, toughness, and self-indulgence. This dramatic swing in focus leaves a question as to where the recent activity in papermaking fits in. In fact, there is some suggestion in current critical writing (5) that the craft field should no longer be included in the current definition of fine art. But paper has always had many faces and many roles in both the fine arts and craft realms, in the purely aesthetic and the functional domains, regardless of the harmony or lack of harmony between them. At the moment activities in the area of paperworks appear to be laying low, but they are by no means moribund. Paper is an adaptable chameleon and can conform to prevailing aesthetic trends as needed. More importantly, for those artists for whom the use of paper and an involvement in the cumulative cultural attributes of paper has become an integral component of their work, the commitment is more serious than can be shaken by seasonal fashion. As ever there are some positive elements to cyclical changes of emphasis. For the field of papermaking this has meant, of necessity, maturing and adapting to these new influences by dropping some of the purist self-righteousness that had been developing. Still the question remains, "What's next?". The answer for the moment seems to be "everything and nothing". "Nothing" because there is nothing big and new and dramatic happening in the sense of big national art news - no one has made a handmade paper glider that can cross the Atlantic; no one has made a casting of the Tower of London for Christo to wrap; and there have been no bilateral agreements declaring that the preservation of the tradition of handmade paper necessitates a halt in the nuclear arms race. Yet one must also respond "everything" because there are a number of quiet, dramatic evolutions refining and adapting the innovations -- of both a conceptual and a technical nature -- that took place in the use of handmade paper in the 1970s. The seventies' need for purity and total absorption in one conceptual and technical framework has been replaced by the eighties' preference for diversity and exploration of multiple facets of an individual's talents and expressions. One sees less pure craft than one saw ten or fifteen years ago. Some artists have already been through a period of totally focused concentration on both the hand papermaking process and technique as well as, often, the related cultural philosophies that permit such focused concentration. For those artists this period of diversity is a welcome opportunity to apply the virtuosity gained to a broader context using an expanded visual vocabulary. There are similar benefits for those artists who choose to and are able to collaborate with facilitators who have had this experience. The technical refinements and mixed media applications developed over the years give these artists a very precise set of abilities that they are now using in combination with a number of other interests and modes of expression. Papermaking has moved from a fad to a solidly based choice among media not only for printmaking but for mixed media installations, paintings, sculpture, drawings, and monotypes. Unfortunately this maturation of the medium and of the work of artists who have invested time in its exploration and refinement coincides with a time of insecurity and conservatism in the art world as a whole that has reinforced the 16th century ordering of painting over sculpture over other "lesser" media. (6) This retrenchment has pressured some paper artists to retreat to a more predictably safe material, canvas, even though they find it less sensitive and less responsive. For many artists, however, an involvement with paper continues to be an important aspect of their work. There is a predictable cycle in the work of those artists who become seriously involved with handmade paper. At first one is seduced by the pulp, the ease with which it can be manipulated, and the way that it can trap other objects or materials. The first works one does with handmade paper pulp tend to be dominated by the texture of the paper itself (too often the characteristic cottage-cheese look of recycled or improperly beaten pulp). Only after considerable work with paper can the ideas and expressions of the artist regain domination over the medium. Over the years a number of artists have worked intensely in the field, developing specific techniques for their individual expressions. Now the work of these artists has come to a new maturity and includes greater integration of their uses of paper into their artwork as a whole. A look at some of the top artists who have worked with paper for several years indicates the many directions that an involvement with paper can lead to and the refinements for which these artists are responsible. (7) In some instances their contact with papermaking has presented new possibilities and served as a transition from one manner of working and a single material into a totally different type of work. One artist who has made maximum use of this transitional potential of paper is Suzanne Anker. Over the past fifteen years her work has moved from an emphasis on prints to paper casting, to stone sculpture, to large cast paper installations, and, most recently, to paintings and cast bronzes. Anker's involvment with paper has fed her experimentation and growth in other media and, more importantly, has supported her shift to a deeper, more meaningful content from that of her earlier images. Anker's most recent work resonates with power and integrity that is the product of her working through these interdisciplinary changes. Her resulting process is unique to and appropriate for her conceptual concerns. Sirpa Yarmolinsky, too, has used paper manipulation and hand papermaking to explore and expand her means of expression. Initially trained in classical painting techniques, Yarmolinsky spent several years working with large dramatic fiberworks. She then began utilizing the variety of tar papers from her native Finland to create large paperworks. Through her introduction to hand papermaking at Pyramid in Baltimore (8), Yarmolinsky moved from using ready-made papers to making her own linen and abaca pulps in her studio and combining these and tar papers into very unique paperworks. The more direct involvement with the pulp and formation of paperworks has recently led to a return to painting and drawing, resulting in a broader range of materials available for the expression of this fine artist's images. A sensitivity to the appropriateness of particular materials, specifically of paper, has allowed Bilg[']e Friedlaender to continue the evolution of her individual expression. Her intense involvement with personal markings creates works that celebrate and evoke the essence of interrelationships within the natural world, between man and the natural world, and among humans. A more direct experience with handmade paper (9) has expanded her vocabulary from one of a palette of handmade papers and historically significant pre-papers from throughout the world to her own participation in the formation of paper for monotypes and cast pieces, increasing her ability to maintain a close relationship between the materials and the content of her work. Such integrity and consistency has always been extremely important to Friedlaender's work. For many artists, the extensive exploration of paper has opened up new ways of thinking and working in both conceptual and technical areas. What might previously have been technically difficult stumbling blocks have now become new and exciting possibilities for expressions and execution because of increased experience and understanding developed by intense work. Exposure to the intercultural uses of paper also broadens an artist's understanding of the possibilities. Historically the role of paper - in both a functional and aesthetic sense - has resulted in a tremendous variety of qualities and types of papers. The recent American interest in hand papermaking has added a dramatic new aspect to the historic repertoire of handmade papers and their uses: the sculptural possibilities for paper. Charles Hilger is a sculptor whose technical inventions centering around the development of the vacuum table have permitted him to devise innovative means of achieving three dimensionality and fine sculptural detail, with the potential of tremendous scale. This and other refinements have enabled Hilger to achieve a sophistication of technique comparable to baroque virtuosities like Rubens' use of oil colors or Hogarth's use of the graver. Hilger's white pieces have the movement and clarity of a Vivaldi concerto. He continues to share his techniques in vacuum table collaborations such as the editions he has produced with Laddie John Dill and William Tucker. These collaborations have allowed the artists to benefit from the years of technical experience and maturation in their own work. Another sculptor whose painstaking research has opened tremendous new sculptural capabilities for handmade paper is Winifred Lutz. Her intense exploration of the shrinkage and molding qualities of short and long fibers in paper casting and experiments with color absorption and translucency have given her a tremendously subtle range of effects for her castings. This vocabulary has permitted her to expand her own concerns of interior and exterior site-specific environments and has allowed her to make sophisticated statements about the record of natural processes found in nature and the implication that these natural situations have for the human condition. A different area of increased technical innovation is the capability of handmade paper to be combined with an image simultaneous with its formation as a sheet of paper. The resulting imagery is physically and aesthetically bonded as an integral part of the paper. Helen Frederick's technical experimentations have permitted her own work and that of her collaborators, including Bilg[']e Friedlander, to develop an entirely new means of combining and integrating direct and spontaneous markings and colors with other layers of color with textures and the paper's fibers to produce an integrated work of art that is at once complex and immediate. The refinements of Frederick's monotype process (10) allow much greater intricacy without loss of spontaneity or ease of expression. The intercultural aspects of paper are legion. Interchange between cultures, between epochs, yet still between individuals, is another source of paper's richness. Every culture has its unique forms of paper and its own traditional - often sacred - uses of paper. An exploration of these similarities and differences with paper as the common thread is an intriguing adventure. The irrepressible Robert Rauschenberg, using his intercultural handmade paper experiences in Ambert, France; Ahmedabad, India; and Anhui, China, as role models, has developed ROCI (Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange). ROCI, Rauschenber's monumental international traveling exhibition, is his one-man effort to create greater peace and world understanding through international interaction with his ambitious round the world exhibition. Though ROCI is by no means limited to artwork that utilizes paper, paper in its many forms and aspects continues to play a significant role in Rauschenberg's work. It's not only the mastery and improvement of technical aspects of papermaking that have given additional resonance to these artists' works. Getting involved in papermaking, for most artists, has also meant getting involved in the dual roles of paper both as a commercial everyday substance and as a deeply spiritual material that has had sacred connotations in many sophisticated, historic cultures. This use of paper as a magical or sacred material continues to fascinate artists. Concerned with this underlying mystical quality of paper, Michelle Stuart rubs and combines paper, soil, and site-collected shards to evoke the universal time and place of her imagery. Her work continues to combine an intellectual and emotional evocation of ancient cultures with her personal interpretation of the philosophical and psychological backgrounds of the nineteenth century explorers of those cultures. Paper functions on many levels to produce and convey Stuart's images. Her manufacture and use of paper and her investigations into the various roles of paper continue to enrich her work. The recent work of the above artists is testimony to evolutions, interactions, and international interchange that were in part encouraged by the New American Paperworks exhibition and its extensive use of artist participants. (11) Happily these same kinds of exposures and interchanges are now taking place in a number of forums and formats, furthering the evolution of paper as a medium of expression and communication. In fact there are numerous indications that an appreciation of handmade paper is flourishing worldwide. The 1st International Biennial of Paper Art, held at the Leopold-Hoesch Museum in Duren, West Germany, last year, appears to have been a monumental exhibition attempting to survey the state of contemporary paperworks. The catalogue contains interesting essays offering insights as to the Europeans' view of the handmade paper phenomenon. The exhibition coincided with the first meeting of the International Association of Hand Papermakers and Paper Artists (IAPMA), a group dedicated to increasing international information on hand papermaking. (12) Another positive indicator as to the level of interest in handmade paper is the fact that the 24th National Print Exhibition organized by Barry Walker at the Brooklyn Museum, Public and Private: American Prints Today, included a number of outstanding works that incorporate handmade paper. One was struck by the artists' awareness of the selection of paper as an important aspect in the making of a print. Even more significant is the fact that the documentation for all of the works in the exhibition now includes a complete description of the type and source of the paper for each work. This deceptively small detail is an indication of the increased importance afforded the role of paper in contemporary art. Continued interest in international exchange and interchange is demonstrated by the fact that the inveterate Asao Shimura, personal paper ambassador between East and West, has led his ninth Washi tour of papermaking sites in Japan this spring!(13) One is also now seeing some very exciting paperworks being done by Asian artists -- in large part a response to the Asians' observations of the activity in the United States and Europe. Information about these activities is communicated by exchange conduits such as the activities of Shimura and his Cannabis Press in Japan. As a result of the persistent efforts of individuals mentioned above as well as Octavio Roth in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Penny Wells in Hobart, Tasmania, Fred Siegenthaler in Switzerland, among many others, hand papermaking is thriving. It is being exhibited and written about and has become the subject of conferences worldwide. A close look at the various activities in hand papermaking today reasurres one that the pursuits of the paper artist cannot be easily disarmed. They are too closely allied with the long term concerns that art has addressed since prehistoric man first made purely aesthetic marks. Short term fashion will not be an issue in the continued exploration of the aesthetic and spiritual role that paper can play in our culture; an involvement with the making and use of paper will remain a valid artistic concern.     NOTES:   1. Paperworks refers to art objects in which paper is more than a substrate or support for an image. 2. "Craft is a Muddle," Rob Bernard. New Art Examiner, Volume 14, Number 6 (February, 1987), pp. 24-27. 3. Burroughs, Betty, editor. Vasari's Lives of the Artists: Biographies of the Most Eminent Architects, Painters, and Sculptors of Italy. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946. p xxi. In describing the artistic environment of the 16th century, the editor writes: "Artists and critics had at least succeeded in lifting painting and sculpture from the level of mere crafts and had established them among the liberal arts." 4. One side benefit from this return to the old hierarchy and interest in the history of painting is a renewed awareness of the concept of drawing, if not a return to the actual practice. A return to the skill of draftsmanship may only come in another generation, after schools can resurrect the instruction of drawing. 5. Barnard, op. cit., p. 27. 6. Burroughs, op. Cit., pp. xxi and 23. The practice of referring to the hierarchy of the visual arts, placing painting and sculpture over the lesser arts, and firmly separating the crafts from the fine arts stems from the guilds and levels referred to by Burroughs and was reinfored through the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries by the various salons, academies, and official arbiters of taste. 7. I focus here on some of the artists whose work I have followed closely because of our mutual involvment in the New American Paperworks exhibition. The exhibition, which toured twelve U.S. cities and eight Asian cities between 1982 and 1986, featured an unusually high artist involvement in the adaptation of the installations to the various host institutions and in the extenseive programming arranged at the different sites. 8. Pyramid Prints and Paperworks, an atelier of papermaking, printmaking, and book arts, was founded in Baltimore in 1980. It has since expanded to include a larger facility in Washington, D.C. and has adopted the name Pyramid Atlantic. 9. For a clear description of the new monotype process developed by Helen Frederick with Bilg[']e Friedlaender, see "Monotypes and Handmade Paper: A New Expression of Drawing", by Helen C. Frederick, Hand Papermaking, v. 1, no. 2 (Winter, 1986), pp. 3-6. 10. Ibid. 11. See note 7. 12. Copies of the catalogue from the biennial are still available. Contact: Dr. Dorothea Eimert / Leopold-Hoesch Museum / Postfach 486 / D-5160 Duren / West Germany. For more information on IAPMA, contact: Fred Siegenthaler / Stockertstrasse 2 / CH-4132 Muttenz / Switzerland. 13. An indication of a very strong interest in international interchange and technical exchange which is closely related to the interest in handmade paper and paperworks is the very exciting woodcut project currently underway through the efforts of Crown Point Press in San Francisco. As a result of this project, a number of western artists including William Wiley, Richard Diebenkorn, Wayne Thiebaud, John Cage, Pat Steir, and Robert Kushner, have been sent to Kyoto to work with master woodblock craftsmen to produce exquisite color woodcuts on fine Japanese handmade papers.

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