All of this quite naturally progressed into a love of putting ink onto paper in a purposeful, artistic way—even if it meant working for nearly eighteen years largely unrecognized and overlooked in the rather hot pursuit of contemporary Chinese art that brewed in the West in the decades on either side of the new millennium. Within the past four years Mansheng Wang's art has found its proper place and increasing recognition in the contemporary Chinese art world, first in the US and then in China. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Mansheng's art is that, while his work on the surface appears to be traditional and in the spirit of classical Chinese painting and printmaking, his techniques, materials, and tools are quite eclectic. He experiments with traditional and non-traditional inks, pigments, brushes, some Western machine-made papers, and many types of Chinese handmade papers. The images he creates carry the spirit, character, and look of the work of masters  of Chinese painting centuries ago. Rather than allowing some insistence on purity and tradition to dictate his working methods, the inspiration of his artistic vision and the desire to experiment in the process of discovering a particular visual effect determine which tools, techniques, and materials he employs. My conversation with Mansheng Wang, in his home and studio in Dobbs Ferry, New York, lasted the whole afternoon of 27 February 2014. Our rather loosely defined topic began as Chinese handmade paper and his artwork. What emerged was a treasure of one artist's thoughts about paper and the intimate connections along a continuum from paper to paper production to paper suppliers to artist to images in thought and imagination, to materials—tools, paper, ink, pigments—to images on paper. And along the way his comments offer some answers to the questions that those who usually use Western papers persistently raise, often simply out of lack of familiarity: Why is it that Chinese papers are so thin and the sheets so large? Is Chinese hand papermaking dying? Has the quality of Chinese handmade papers deteriorated severely? I have isolated here questions that I asked during our conversation. Mansheng's responses show clearly that he is deeply and quite unaffectedly a philosopher about paper, his own ink art on paper, and art in contemporary China. NANCY NORTON TOMASKO (NNT): Where does the vision for your landscape paintings or your prints of Buddha come from? MANSHENG WANG (MW): The wide landscape around Dunhuang (敦 煌), that large, densely concentrated, and immensely important locus of Buddhist caves on the Silk Road in far Western China, feels really bare. As in Arizona and New Mexico, the landscape is just huge, so amazing, endless, and it makes a person feel so small. But on further consideration the view becomes very rich, with memory getting thicker and thicker as you relate the place to its history. At Dunhuang it is the light more than anything else. On a gray day, the landscape will not change because the light is just gray, everything is dead and feels so bare and boring. But, especially in the morning, when the sun strikes the Dunhuang cliff face, it is glorious, just like gold. Images on the cave walls were initially for the purpose of helping a monk sit in quiet meditation after first contemplating the face of Buddha and saving that clearly in the mind. Clusters of multiple representations, called "Myriads of Buddhas," (shifang zhufo 十萬諸 佛, literally, Buddhas from All Points), are found at many cave sites in China. While the images seem alike, each is handmade, carved in stone or painted on a wall, and so each is slightly different—much the way fingerprints differ. In fact, this multiplication of figures is a representation of the real world and shows the variation found in mankind. The library cave at Dunhuang held woodblock-printed scrolls of these repeated images. I really liked this idea and started doing this kind of print in early 2000. But I do something different by adding on many layers of color to get different effects. And I also sometimes use Western papers and sometimes very large or odd-sized sheets of Chinese papers. I sometimes use machine-made bast-fiber (pizhi 皮紙) paper from Wenzhou that comes in a roll so that I can decide just how long I want to make the scroll. For one piece I used two lengths of paper 195 x 209 centimeters (76.8 x 82.3 inches) and joined them together side by side. The background was dyed black with Chinese ink and over-printed in gold acrylic. The image was printed from a woodblock that I carved based on an early representation of Buddha in transition from India through Central Asia en route to China. Every time I dye paper for printing I have done it differently, probably as many as fifty different ways. With each project I try to spontaneously change a little bit and use a special technique, and then switch to something else the next time. NNT: And you change papers sometimes, too? MW: Yes, I use many different papers. Chinese xuan paper (xuanzhi 宣紙) is a highly valued treasure because it shows ink the best. You can't replace it with 100-percent bast-fiber paper—such as paper-mulberry paper (chupi 楮皮 or goushupi 枸樹皮, Broussonetia papyrifera, Japanese kozo) or mulberry paper (sangpizhi 桑皮紙, Morus alba)— or with any other paper and get the same effects. Of course, there are many different types of xuan paper depending on the proportions of bast fibers (specifically, qingtanpi 青檀皮, also known as wingceltis or blue sandalwood) and dry-land rice-straw fibers. I use a variety of papers. It's just fun to play with them to bring out the best qualities of a particular paper in my work. Some people in the West may have very little sense of how to use thin handmade Chinese papers and may ask why the Chinese don't make and use thicker papers for painting. Paintings on thick paper can't be rolled up and will crack very easily. So, we use white, thin paper for painting and other thin papers made specially for mounting purposes. Mounting papers are slightly larger than the standard sizes of Chinese papers so that the mounted painting can be pasted out around the edges and hung onto a drying wall to be stretched tight. The quality of mounting paper is only slightly inferior to xuan paper. Even with many layers of mounting paper adhered to its back, a mounted painting will remain very flexible. My attitude toward paper is always changing. The first time I use a paper, sometimes I don't feel comfortable with it. I feel something is wrong, but I can't tell exactly what. When I am not comfortable with a paper, I put it aside because I don't want to waste it. Then one day, I might happen to bump into this paper again when I am working on some different project and find that it then fits the materials, the subject, or the techniques perfectly. Sometimes I seek out somewhat unconventional papers for projects. For example, I just used a couple of bolts (one bolt, yidao 一刀 , is one hundred sheets) of a rough calligraphy-practice paper for paintings and for the serious work of writing out texts in which painting masters through the ages explain their ideas about painting and calligraphy. And now I am in search of gaolizhi (高麗 紙), Chinese Korean-style paper, simply because it is different from other paper. It is square or a little taller by an inch or two than it is wide, and its chain lines are close together and rather prominent. When I first came to the US, I brought several different kinds with me, but after it was used up, I couldn't find much of it. I have some paintings that I feel are really, really good, but which I can't repeat because the paper that I came across was perfect for use with the techniques I was using at that very moment, which became precisely the best moment for that type of paper. That is why there is no best paper and there is no worst paper. It's all about how you use it and what kind of techniques you are using. If you use one paper for a long time, you will discover the best of it and the best way to use it, and no other paper can ever replace it. This perfect situation, however, will never stay the same. For example, every time I go to Beijing, I buy paper, several different kinds of Chinese paper, one bolt of each. By the time I have used up one hundred sheets, I have truly found the best way to use this paper. But, when I return to China to buy another bolt or two, it's gone. Some- times the business is not there, or even if the business is still there and it still has the paper I ask for by name, I bring it back and find that it's totally different. NNT: What qualities do you look for in the papers you buy? MW: In choosing a paper to use, it's all about the texture. A "finethread cloud dragon" paper (xisi yunlong 細絲雲龍) is rougher than xuanzhi and also less absorbent. Absorbency is the most important thing, and different artists like different degrees of absorbency. An artist will end up struggling a lot if the absorbency is not what he expects. Waterleaf xuan paper (shengxuan 生宣) is much too absorbent for some artists. The ink runs too quickly so that the absorbency is sometimes very difficult to control, except if you really like the effect of the ink going wild. If that's your style, your preference, then shengxuan would be the best for you. I use papers of a variety of absorbencies, which means that I need to try out a hundred sheets of each just to understand how that type responds to ink. By contrast, Western paper, machine-made paper, and mat board are hardly absorbent; the ink and pigments just sit on top of the paper and don't penetrate below the surface. Sometimes friends have written letters to me on Western handmade paper that they themselves have made. After reading the letter, I use the paper and the envelope for a few lines of calligraphy or a painting. But none of these are as smooth and fine as Chinese waterleaf or fine-thread cloud dragon. Rather they are thick and rough on the surface, kind of bumpy. For artwork, I still think Chinese paper and Japanese paper are the best. And not only for my work, but probably for all artists in this tradition—Japanese, Chinese, Korean—who are doing serious artwork. NNT: Is there a variety of Chinese handmade papers available today? MW: The number of different Chinese papers available in China today is far greater than at any time in China's history, but along the way, some papers have just disappeared, gone out of existence. Now when you go to Liulichang (琉璃廠) art and antique district in Beijing, there are so many paper dealers offering so many different kinds of paper that it would be impossible to try out all of them. Some paper dealers provide brushes and ink so that you can try the papers out on the spot. Of course, they hope you can paint some really beautiful artwork to leave with them. In recent years most of the paper that I purchased was from a young guy from Anhui (安徽) province at his shop on Liulichang, but on my last trip to Beijing, he was gone, nowhere to be found. Another dealer was the son of a papermaker with his own factory in Jingxian (涇縣) in Anhui. Sometime in 2008 or 2009 I went to his shop looking for papers and found him really warm and very good at talking. We had a long chat and his wife prepared first one kind of fine tea and then another. The tea was so, so good and I just kept drinking it and talking. I couldn't leave. He prepared ink and very good brushes, and I tried out many different papers, testing the absorbency and how the ink reacted with the brushstroke. Slowly this skillful young dealer sucked me in, and I left with four or five bolts of paper. Over several years I bought many different kinds of paper from him, but I simply haven't found the best way to use some of them. I went back to find this dealer later, but, likewise, he and his shop had disappeared. NNT: How are Chinese handmade papers and the paper market changing? MW: The contemporary Chinese art market is consuming huge amounts of paper. One artist posted an image of his studio in Beijing, probably several hundred square meters large, filled with mounds of failed attempts along the way to achieving his artistic ideal. Some artists like to say that they waste three thousand sheets of paper in order to get a few paintings they feel are truly wonderful abstract art, such as was exhibited recently in Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. To meet these market demands, papermakers in China today are finding it necessary to find new sources of fibers in order to continue production. When papermakers use up all of one sort of fiber, say, bast fiber such as paper-mulberry fiber, then I am willing to use instead mulberry paper, and then elm-bast paper (yushu pizhi 榆樹皮紙), and then willow-bast paper (yangshu pizhi 楊樹 皮紙), just any paper that's there. Of course, every papermaker is calling his paper xuan paper, regardless of the fibers used. And they have to add that it's "genuine, genuine Red Star Brand xuan paper (zhen zheng de Hongxing xuanzhi 真正的紅星宣紙)." Even with all of these "genuine, genuine" claims, there no longer is any genuine anything anymore. It is the fake culture at work, as in any area, any business. Also, there is a lot of discussion about pollution. Some papermakers, in compliance with environmental regulations, no longer process raw fibers and resort to using fibers processed elsewhere in China or even to using wood pulp purchased from the US. I don't need 100-percent genuine xuan paper, because my idea is that no paper is the best until you find the best way to use it. NNT: How do you see Chinese handmade paper interacting with other tools and materials used by artists? MW: The study of materials is one of the most important things for artists to do. Traditionally Chinese refer to the four treasures of the artist's studio—paper, brush, ink, and ink stone. Chinese art is intimately connected to Chinese handmade paper as part of its tradition. And ink is tied so closely to handmade paper. Without handmade paper, ink would not be especially appealing, wouldn't look that great. It's the absorbency of handmade paper that makes Chinese ink look special. I consider how large a piece is and the effect I want to achieve and then decide whether to use bottled ink or whether to grind my own ink on an ink stone. Large masterpieces from several hundred years ago didn't require a particularly large amount of ink, all of which could be ground from ink sticks. Even as late as the nineteenth century, most artists ground their own ink. In contemporary Chinese art, ink stones have become less and less important because of the way artists use ink. Large ink-on-paper works of art require huge quantities of prepared ink, and most artists use bottled inks. Some of the pieces of art in the Met's Ink Art show were done on very large sheets of paper and used gallons of ink, more ink than it is possible to grind by hand. In the rush of modern life, an artist doesn't want to work all day to grind enough ink for a project. Bottled ink is just like fast food. It's a sandwich or a hotdog. Just as with art collectors in the art market, collectors of the four treasures are driving prices up in the art-supply market. It is possible to spend US$1,600 for a single sheet of paper and as much for an exquisite brush. It is not clear why these things should be sold for so much money. And because I have no way to try out these prohibitively expensive materials and tools, they are like garbage to me, useless. NNT: Is Chinese handmade paper dying? MW: I have heard that some people think that Chinese hand papermaking is dying. What they are saying is that the old ways are dying, or no longer being continued quite as they were. But with so many people using Chinese handmade paper, how could the paper business die? Chinese handmade paper is not going to die; it is just changing. The basic papermaking method is still the old, New Bamboo in the Morning Mist, 2012, 54 x 27 inches, ink on bamboo paper. upper right: White Lotus, 2013, 16 x 17½ inches, ink on calligraphy practice paper (yuanshuzhi 元书纸). lower right: Mansheng Wang in his former studio in Dobbs Ferry, New York the traditional way. As the source for a particular fiber is used up, papermakers will change to a different fiber. And thus the new paper will not be the old paper anymore. That is why each time I go back to China, I end up buying papers different from the ones purchased previously. Perhaps the name of the paper will be the same, but the paper itself will be different because the fibers are different. Resources disappearing completely, that's the scary part. NNT: Could you say a little about the techniques you have used to create your dramatic landscapes? MW: Night visions of landscapes are extremely unusual in Chinese art, but I really love those moments when I can see the daylight switch to night. It is very beautiful and peaceful and something special, seeing the last bits of evening light striking a rock formation. The challenge of painting this image on a hard mat board surface helped me invent something completely new in Chinese art. I used many techniques that no one had used before, something almost like printing, to get different textures and create an abstract image first. Then I carefully tried to bring out what I saw in the many layers of color in this abstract work. What I see comes from my imagination, but also is based on my knowledge of Chinese paintings, Chinese landscapes, and on the travel I have done and the mountains I have seen. My landscapes resemble traditional Chinese landscape paintings, A Thousand Flying Cascades, 2010, 13½ x 18 inches, ink on mulberry (sangpi) paper. One of a series of 21 paintings. but push the effects in many non-traditional ways. Adding blue to a landscape of mountains around Tianchi (天池) is far from traditional in Chinese landscape painting. This image remained in my mind from a television shoot done years ago in far western China. Nature is the great teacher, and I, like many Chinese artists, study and imitate creation, study and imitate the ancients, and add to this from reading widely and traveling extensively. Landscape paintings are neither slavishly a photographic-like copy of nature nor completely unlike the original, rather the image is somewhere between resembling and not resembling. Sometimes use of totally unconventional tools, such as bundles of wild grasses for a brush, yield remarkable effects. Sometimes mistakes become a technique through which to discover a paper. Sometimes imperfections in papers that are far from "superior" produce unusual effects, either desirable or perhaps not. Sometimes in ink art the lines simply do not stay tight and sharp and rather often something quite unexpected and unusual happens. Interesting, blurring effects can be achieved using ink that has dried on the ink stone. Water added to that residue will yield ink that runs when mounted, softening the lines and creating shadows. An artist needs to work on this technique for many years to figure out how to drive the ink, how to create specific effects. And this is, as are all painting techniques, connected to the texture of handmade paper, which to an artist is its most appealing aspect.