My first opportunity to visit Japan came in 1983 when I was invited to participate in the International Paper Conference in Kyoto. Apart from materializing an old dream of mine, being in Japan was a permanent exercise in discovering and experimenting with new things. I sensed that one visit would not be enough. Everywhere I went, everything I saw, everyone I met was a good reason to return in the future. Somehow I needed an extra dose of Japanese culture all for myself. Six months later, to my own surprise, I returned. I presented the United Nations with a project that they agreed to co-sponsor: to produce an illustrated version of the Declaration of Human Rights with Japanese text. Professor Ryiochi Kogi, a well-known calligrapher, was appointed by the Mainichi Association to work with me on the project. I would be responsible for the images and he would take care of the text. We worked together in his studio for three weeks to complete all thirty articles of the Declaration. The Mokiti Okada Foundation had arranged for me to stay in a small hotel in Tokyo during my visit and this is where our true story begins. At that time I had already been working with handmade paper for six years. I had introduced the technique in Brazil in 1979 after returning from Europe, where I had lived for five years, first in England and then in Norway. The mill I set up was, according to Dr. Benjamin Solitrenick, a recognized paper historian and researcher in Brazil, the first one to operate in South America. I produced 1000 sheets a month with the help of four assistants, and our market was primarily the artistic one. The mill also served as my own studio where I produced my artwork. One thing that always concerned me, though, was that I was totally tied to my equipment in S[~]ao Paulo. The freedom to move around and the freedom to work anywhere in the world were slowly slipping from my grasp. I was beginning to be disturbed by all that. Somehow I wanted to solve that problem. One night, after a wonderful working day with Professor Kogi, I had an idea in my little hotel room. What if I could make handmade paper here in Tokyo, with no tools, no equipment, nothing? That was a challenge and could be the answer to my dilemma. Would I be free to make paper anywhere I wanted, even in a tiny hotel room in Tokyo? The process of making paper by hand in the traditional Western method was very familiar to me: I needed some rags, I had to reduce them to pulp, I needed a vat, water, a mold, felts, a press; not much. I thought about it. I looked around the room, stood up and saw my T-shirt over the chair. I checked the label: 100% cotton. That was it. I tore a piece from the sleeve and put it in my mouth. I chewed it for almost two hours, while being entertained by the glitter of Japanese TV. Two hours of chewing leaves your jaws in terrible shape but also turns cotton rag into pulp. That tasteless white pulp was placed in a small rice bowl over on the table. Then I added some tap water. So far so good: 100% cotton rag, beaten to pulp, inside a vat with water! Over on the table I saw a match box. One of the matches would make a good mold if I dipped it into the pulp and took it out. The fibers clung to the stick as I lifted it from my miniature vat. Another step was completed. The rest was simple: a towel as the felt, two fingers for a press, and Japanese air for drying. The whole experience lasted for two and a half hours and a very interesting TV program of which I did not understand a single word. The challenge was overcome. Yes, I could make 100% rag paper, with no traditional equipment, in a tiny hotel room, in Tokyo, or anywhere else in the world. The next morning, working with Professor Kogi, I sensed a strange expression in my face: it was partially satisfaction and partially jaw ache. The experience of working on such a small scale seemed appropriate in Japan. I noticed how small were the galleries, the people, and, most of the time, the art work as well. On the other hand, the appreciation of such work requires a close and intimate presence of the viewer. I liked that. Being close to the work enables you to see other things -- texture, thickness, roughness, fragility -- but most of all it brings you closer to the essence of the work. My little "thing" made of 100% rag paper around a match stick conveyed a lot to an attentive observer. One could see in that small piece of paper more properties than in a large sheet. I named it "little thing", or coisinha in Portuguese, and began to see a lot of work deriving from that. I started to sketch a few ideas, composing, with those little things, bigger things. It reminded me of T'sai Lun inventing paper (or whoever really did it) 2000 years earlier. He used a bamboo mold covered with cloth to form the first sheet of paper, possibly from old ropes. I decided to use the same materials in my constructions; my own modest way to pay him tribute. So I had cloth, bamboo, and rope to work with and the ideas started to take shape. The use of bamboo in Japan is enormous and vast. Bamboo and rope were also easily accessible in Brazil. When I returned home, I started to manufacture little things by the hundreds. No more chewing, of course, even though I could get my employees to do it for me if I wanted to be totally original. Instead, I beat a lot of cotton rags and linters in the Hollander, ordered a lot of bamboo sticks from the local manufacturer of hashi (Japanese chopsticks) and bought rolls and rolls of rope. The resulting constructions were called "Totems". To me they represented the synthesis of both trips to Japan; the best way I found to express the lessons I had learned from the Japanese in both Japan and, of course, in Brazil, during my whole life. Soon after my trip I had a show in my gallery in S[~]ao Paulo. The Totems later developed into larger constructions and gradually took a different shape. The images of the Totem Series reminded a lot of people of our native indians; they asked me at the opening if I had spent some time in the Amazon with them. I was surprised to see the connection but my answer was quite evasive: no I have not been in the Amazon at all, I have been trying to understand how I became a walking paper mill. A drink, a toast, and we changed the conversation.
