"Paper is extremely interesting," suggests artist Harry Reese, "but it is so  ephemeral and momentarily delicate that it isn't a candidate for public art unless  you can do something to it."1 For many artists, the key issue is finding  ways to make their paper more durable without sacrificing the qualities that attracted  them to the medium in the first place. Some, such as New York–based  sculptor Ming Fay, find that satisfying themselves artistically means not using  paper in their public art pieces. Fay notes: "I have experimented with coatings  and binders for paper and have left pieces outside for years—and some of  them survived. But they get old like a piece of wood would. I have works in  corporate collections that are semi-public, but I have never gotten a public art  commission with paper as the final material. The reality is that the client is  always interested in permanent materials that have a record of longevity. Once  paper reaches that level, it is probably not paper as we know it anymore."2  Coatings, however, can sometimes be used effectively. Indeed, altering the  paper's surface can become a means to achieving a piece's conceptual aims.  For her installation Landscape Dialogue (1994), Sara Garden Armstrong, an  artist who works extensively in paper, painted a group of paper sculptures so  that "it changes color as you move around and past the forms; their pivots allow  constant change in the forms' aspect and relationship to each other. This  flux is symbolic of the constant state of change in life itself—human emotions  and sensations that are in constant transition as well as the rhythms of nature  and the earth itself."3  To achieve this effect Armstrong explains: "I worked with Golden Paint to  devise a procedure—they were great! After the acrylic paint…\[I used\] GAC 700  with airbrush medium to coat them. This dried over 24 hours. Next I used four  coats of a MSA varnish, which was supposed to be better for UV protection.  This also went through a buildup/drying time. I built a plastic spray booth  Paper in Public:  Handmade Paper in  Public Art Installations  tatiana ginsberg  Sara Garden Armstrong, detail of Landscape Dialogue, installed 1994. Sprayed abaca pulp and acrylic paint.  Seven forms approximately 5 x 8 feet each in a 27 x 25 x 85 foot atrium. Commissioned by Peat Marwick in  Radnor, Pennsylvania. All photos courtesy of the artists unless otherwise noted.  - hand papermaking  in the studio to spray the forms with this MSA varnish." Using  this series of products designed as a system clearly worked: the  piece has been installed in a glass atrium since 1994 and, despite  being flooded with sunlight, has not faded or deteriorated  in any way.  Another artist who has successfully married coating with  concept is Nancy Cohen. Working together with Dieu Donné  Papermill in New York, she created the site-specific installation  Only Connect (1996) at Staten Island's Snug Harbor Cultural  Center. It was important to her that the papers allow the underlying  armatures to show through. Cohen describes, "The piece  was about the relationship of the formal garden in one space and  the greenhouse where everything was grown. So in the formal  garden the armatures were made out of vines, and in the other  place they were made out of gardening equipment…it was about  that duality. I wanted you to be able to see what the armatures  were made out of, so it was important that the paper be translucent."  4  Cohen also had to consider how to protect the abaca forms  from the greenhouse's sprinklers, which would water them every  day. Wax, she was pleased to discover, both increased the translucency  and provided water resistance. "The piece was already dry  and then I painted on hot beeswax," Cohen explains. "Then   wiped it right then, and then heated it up with a hairdryer and  wiped it again with a paper towel. It took forever, like everything  does in paper…but it worked great." The labor-intensive process  paid off—the pieces showed almost no wear after being watered  daily for eight months. Twelve years later, Cohen still has one  of the forms hanging in her studio, which she says shows no  change in color and remains tight as a drum.  But Cohen has had her share of technical difficulties with  coatings. Inside-Out (2003), a public art installation for the  lobby of a corporate building in Patterson, New Jersey, was a  tremendous undertaking, involving hundreds of handmade  paper forms. Unfortunately, after about three and a half years  Cohen noticed that the piece had yellowed considerably. The  culprit appears to be the fire retardant that she was required by  the developer to use. While she acknowledges that "it doesn't  look terrible, it looks different," she is left feeling dissatisfied  and now says, "I don't know that I would do another piece where  I was asked to coat it."  Before Inside-Out had displayed any signs of damage, Cohen  had already completed another public art commission, Going  Places: Skyway to Wow! (2005), at a school in New Haven,  Connecticut. The piece was coated with a different fire retardant  and so far has not exhibited any discoloration. The material used  on Inside-Out was obtained through a theatrical supplier, while  Going Places was coated with the flame retardant stocked by Carriage  House. Her most recent project, Estuary: Moods & Modes  (2007), was inspired by New Jersey's Mullica River and coastal  wetlands. Installed at the Noyes Museum for four months, the  piece filled the gallery with cascading forms shifting in color  from golden yellow to rich indigo. Cohen says, "It was really refreshing  not to have to care if it would last—and anyway I think  it would do just fine."  Cohen's experience is a good reminder that most paper installations  involve other materials, which may, through their  own deterioration or their interactions with paper, impact the  longevity of the piece. Karen Stahlecker's room-sized installation  Vortices and Reveries (1993) had traveled extensively and been  displayed for years cumulatively before it was acquired by Jane  Milosch for the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery. Although the  paper needed some mending, other materials were causing the  real problems. The steel hoops had rusted, the soft silver wire  was failing, and the hot glue needed to be replaced with something  more lasting. The project was taken on by conservator Samantha Sheesley, who gave a detailed presentation about her  treatment procedure for the piece at the Friends of Dard Hunter  conference in October 2007. It took nine months, but each of  the eighteen-foot-high forms has now been conserved and restored,  with a new storage and installation system. Without this  care, the piece's lifespan would undoubtedly have been greatly  reduced.  In Japan, large-scale public and corporate art installations in  handmade paper are more common than in the West, and the  vast majority of them are the work of the Kyoto–based designer  Horiki Eriko and her associates. She is the force behind an impressive  number of large-scale commissions for a wide range of  spaces—from Narita International Airport, Japan to the interior  of an abbey in Osaka. The work is highly visible, with pieces dating  back eighteen years still on display. Unlike the individuals  discussed above, Horiki & Associates always works in handmade  paper. She states, "Washi is a traditional material, but there is always  something new to see in it. All the works are made only for  specific spaces by request."5 Horiki holds patents on processes  for both large and three-dimensional sheet forming and employs  fire-retardant coating, acrylic resin bonding, and glass encasing  to make the papers suitable for long-term display.  In the United States, "percent for art" programs have generated  a number of the projects referred to in this article. Many  municipalities have a "percent for art" requirement that calls for  a certain amount (commonly one percent) of the total budget  of new construction to go toward art. Nancy Cohen and Sara  Garden Armstrong were both hired by art consultants to create  many of the pieces described above as part of such programs.  And Broward County, Florida, commissioned Harry Reese to  create a work for a new library as part of its "2 percent for art"  program.  Working together with artist Joel Sherman, as well as the  project's architects and a glass subcontractor, Reese designed a  series of pieces to be placed, not on the walls, but in them. He  points out that "We are used to seeing paper framed—behind  glass. We are not normally used to seeing it between glass." This  idea intrigued Reese enough to keep him working on the project  despite construction delays that caused it to drag on for six and  a half years.  Reese used the services of glass laminator Bernard Lax at  Pulp Studio (no relation to paper) in Los Angeles. Pulp Studio  employs a patented process that permanently fuses paper  between two panes of glass, using a polyvinyl butyrate (PVB)  laminate under high heat and pressure. This process increases  the translucency of the paper, making it appear almost wet. The  panes of glass can be designed to any size, as specified by artist  and architect.  Reese's project, Grus pacifica (2006), uses the motif of the  folded origami crane (which Reese termed Grus pacifica) in  conjunction with Florida's endangered whooping cranes (Grus  americana). One of the lobby's glass windows is embedded with  999 handmade paper cranes at various stages of folding, while  another series of windows depicts silhouettes of cranes alongside  names of extinct birds. The well-known ritual of folding a  thousand cranes to effect a miracle is thus paired with the successful  conservation effort that has brought the local whooping  crane back from the verge of extinction. In another area of the  library, which can be entered through three different-sized doors  (embedded with an image of a small, medium, and large crane,  respectively) children can fold cranes of their own—each one  becoming the thousandth crane.  What, speaking of extinction, constitutes permanence in  public art? Reese relates: "I was told that it was considered to be  permanent if it lasted for 25 years. In an art context it is somewhat  unthinkable to value anything as permanent that lasts only  Horiki & Associates, Installation for Sogo Department Store, installed 2005. Washi on acrylic base, 6 x 28 x 3 meters (approximately 20 x 92 x  10 feet). Commissioned by Sogo Department Store, Shinsaibashi, Osaka. Photo: Matsumura Yoshiharu. Courtesy of Horiki & Associates.  10 - hand papermaking  25 years…It's very interesting—the books would be inside the  library, on shelves, where they would be supposed to last for  hundreds of years, whereas something out in public—protected  much better than on the shelves—that's considered permanent  if it lasts for 25 years."  Such a low threshold of "permanence" may seem disheartening,  but may also open the way for more widespread use of paper.  Perhaps as a medium for long-term installation, handmade  paper calls for an acceptance of the temporary—of paper's ability  to respond to the elements and even its inevitable wear. Karen  Stahlecker says, "I've worked to exploit these visual qualities of  fragility and ephemerality, both because it's ‘expected' of papers  and because it's often very important to the concepts I'm dealing  with."6 Stahlecker doesn't use coatings but notes that "internal  sizings can be helpful to prevent a form from beginning to warp  when the humidity becomes too high." When one of her pieces  is sold to a collector who intends to keep it on permanent display,  she offers the following guidelines:  - Choose a wall out of direct sunlight, and then chose a lighting  system if needed that doesn't include UV spectrum.  - Do not allow smoking in the area of the work, and do not select  a room that also includes a fireplace, candles, etc.  - Pay attention to the humidity in the area—either use a humidifier  OR de-humidifier as needed for human comfort, and  if extremes are expected, take the piece down until the humidity  situation improves.  - Do not allow anyone to touch or handle the work UNLESS  they have scrubbed with soap and water OR are wearing gloves.  - Periodically, dust the work by gently blowing air across the  planes of the piece; generally done while the piece is down on a  worktable so that dust cannot accumulate on the papers.  These excellent suggestions remind us that as an artwork becomes  part of day-to-day life, the risk of damage increases, but so  do the opportunities for enjoyment. After all, art in public seeks  to enliven spaces and is designed to be viewed and interacted  with. Perhaps the pleasure of the experience is more important  than the preservation of the piece.  Besides, as my father likes to say, "Nothing lasts like the temporary."  I installed a couple of handmade paper pieces in the  office of an arts organization for an open house a year and a half  ago and promptly forgot about them. The other day I happened  to go back, and the pieces were still there and still looked good,  without anyone fussing over them.  ___________  notes  1. All quotations by Harry Reese from an interview by the author, November 15,  2007, Isla Vista, California.  2. Ming Fay, e-mail message to the author, August 29, 2007.  3. All quotations by Sara Garden Armstrong from an e-mail message to the  author, November 19, 2007.  4. All quotations by Nancy Cohen from an interview by the author, September  17, 2007, New York City.  5. Horiki Eriko & Associates, fax message to the author, November 11, 2007.  6. Karen Stahlecker, e-mail message to the author, December 3, 2007.