I liked working with flax because I was interested in making seeds and that material dried very hard and felt very much like a tree. But I have always been playing with paper since childhood—making things with it and drawing on it. My mother was very good with her hands and made lanterns, kites, origami, and boxes using rice paper, cardboard, and wheat paste. So as a kid I watched and learned some of her skills. I think of her when I use paper. nancy cohen: My undergraduate education was in ceramics and I continued to work with clay through most of grad school. At the end of that time I spent a year in China and couldn't get any clay and began working with whatever I could find, including discarded paper. I too was introduced to a wide range of paper pulp in a residency at Dieu Donné, working with Paul Wong. It was a transformative time. The pulp felt very much like clay, in its ability to mold and drape and take virtually any form, without having the issues of weight and breakage in the kiln. What working properties of paper and pulp appeal to you? nancy cohen: When I first started working with Hollander-beaten pulps, I was immediately drawn to translucency, of abaca in particular, which reminded me of porcelain; and the fact that color can be inherent to the material rather than something that needed to be applied afterwards. I also love the weightlessness and the flexibility of the material. I can work large and still be able move it around by myself. In addition I find that paper is really adaptive. I am often working with multiple materials in a single piece, and I like that I can make it look like other materials, use it as a transition between materials, or make it in response to other materials. At the moment I am working a lot with glass—paper and glass seem perfect together. They can both be dense or transparent, pale or brightly colored, smooth or chunky—the combinations are endless. I find that I am continually discovering new ways to push the material as my work evolves. For instance, I just completed Hackensack Dreaming, a large installation that uses sheets of pigmented abaca draped as a skin over wire armatures and cotton pulp mushed onto similar structures. I have been using paper this way since my residency at Dieu Donné in 1993. That said, this piece introduces a number of other ways I have been using paper—for example as a surface for image making where the wet pulp creates a dense line that the wet and buckled sheets dry around (the line appearing almost as if it has been embroidered into the paper) and in this case incorporating those drawings into a sculptural installation. I also embedded cast rubber forms in between layers of cotton and abaca, some of which have images of similar forms stenciled on their surface. Finally to pull together these disparate sheets of paper and sculptural elements (including a large number in glass) I began pouring the pulp directly onto the floor of the studio, literally to bring the pulp and the studio together in the work. I mention this because I feel like my vocabulary in the material is constantly building, and with each piece I'm able to bring the previous experiences along with the new work. ming fay: The fact that paper pulp is non-toxic, lightweight, and goes onto any substructure makes it a very desirable material. Paper is economical and creates a friendly working environment. And it is available all over the world—wherever you go, you can find paper to work with. Texture is really important to me, and I like that I can manipulate the paper pulp into multiple grades of smoothness and roughness. Even when I am working on a piece that will be cast in bronze, I prefer to work with paper in the initial stage to create the surface that is most appropriate for the work. I feel connected with the material—it has an extended feeling of the self, an organic quality that lets me shape it into any form. Thirty years ago, I used mainly newspaper pulp and glue on wire armatures. Now I use abaca, rag and commercial papier-mâché products with a mix of materials such as wire, wood, foam, paint, and acrylics to create forms that evoke plant life—mythical, imagined, and surreal—infusing aspects of Chinese culture, philosophy, and popular mythology, grafting together Eastern and Western traditions. What are the challenges of working in paper and pulp? ming fay: Paper is still considered a "lightweight" material and has a reputation for not being able to sustain a legacy of permanence. The market is not open to paying for paper sculpture in a way that matches the labor and material cost of the work. Ming Fay, Butterfly Twig, 2000, mixed-media installation at Nathan Cummings Foundation, New York. summer 2015 - 29 nancy cohen: Sculpture in paper has its own issues, especially on a large scale and for permanent work. It gets dusty, can get punctured, and some engineers and fire marshals worry about it catching fire. I have not yet found a method of fireproofing or sealing the forms in a satisfactory way that doesn't change the visual quality of the work. In our increasingly digital world, what do you think about the function, significance, and future of paper as a material, both in everyday life and in artmaking? nancy cohen: My son and husband are mathematicians and they both think by scribbling ideas and numbers on scraps of paper. My students have all kinds of electronic devices they are very connected to but they still doodle and many have sketchbooks. Writing and drawing and thinking on paper are going to be part of our thought processes for a good long time to come. The more digital our lives become the more essential tactile experiences are. I believe that art which encompasses a sense of touch is directly connected to our primary human experiences, both for the maker and the viewer and will remain meaningful, and perhaps increasingly necessary. ming fay: In everyday life, if paper could be substituted by something else and the alternative is more convenient, then nature will take its own course. In art, paper is a traditional hands-on material. While artists have a broad range of technological materials and methods to choose from, I think paper will always be around as a material for artists to work with, as long as art is made by hand by humans! And paper is certainly a stable material with proven longevity, so art made in paper will endure.

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