Collectors of my Surimono Albums series may remember that I included a design incorporating a number of images from senjafuda, the small 'label' type woodblock prints, and here again I have mined that same source.

The image you see here is from a set of 15 double-size senjafuda entitled Edo Meibutsu (Famous Products of Edo), and depicts a street market in the Ningyo-cho district of the old capital. The design itself does not date from the Edo era, but only from 1928, so we shouldn't take the portrayal of the scene as being exactly literal.

Ningyo-cho was (and still is to some extent) the location of doll and toy manufacturers, and in the weeks and days leading up to the doll festival holiday in early March it must have presented a bustling scene indeed.

The unknown designer of this image has packed quite a lot of activity into such a small space; the main focus is of course on one of the market stalls, with potential customers browsing the dolls and accessories on display, but I particularly enjoy some of the peripheral characters in the scene. Down in the lower left corner we see a young boy carrying a tray, and I think he must be a sushi delivery boy with some shellfish and a bowl of soup; on busy market days I'm sure the stall owners didn't have time to go out for lunch!

A kago is passing by, carried by very well-dressed servants, so we can perhaps assume there is quite an important person inside ...

But I find the character up on the right hand side particularly interesting; don't you think this is supposed to represent a foreigner? Look at the long nose, the goatee, the brown hair ... If I had to guess, I would say this is a Frenchman strolling around the streets of late-era Edo in those years after the country started to open up.

This print may be 'simple', but there are quite a number of printing impressions on it, and I'm happy that it has made it out the door on time! 'See you' again in two weeks!

David
Monday, February 28, 2005

(Here's the print in context in the Treasure Chest series.)

Posted by Dave Bull at 08:44 PM | Comments (0)

Over the course of this year, as I prepare each design for carving, it will usually be the case that I reduce the print size from the original. This time though, I am enlarging it! The image is one from a large number of very small print designs created by Takahashi Shotei in the 1930's for one of the Tokyo publishers. As most of the designs in the group are of 'quaint' themes, it seems likely that the target audience was foreign tourists in Japan. The one I have chosen here is more neutral, and you don't have to be a tourist to enjoy its quiet beauty!

I am writing this little note to accompany the print before the print itself is finished; with a schedule of one print to be completed every two weeks, it is inevitable that my daily work will involve quite a mix of overlapping chores. With just one week to go before mailing day, the carving is nearly finished and the printing is about to begin. Print #3 is also partially carved, the tracing for #4 is on my desk waiting for me, and I'm still not quite decided which of a few alternatives I will choose for #5. Looking at the calendar, I see that it is due to go out on March 28th, so perhaps it should be a cherry theme ...?
So that's the way my year is going to progress - leapfrogging back and forth from one print to another, alternating between my carving bench, the printing bench, the word processor, the ink-jet printer, and the bookkeeping program, all the while dealing with the Post Office, the bank, and suppliers, and coordinating with Ichikawa-san (the lady who wraps and ships your packages), and working on translations with Sadako-san.

Sometimes I envy the old-time craftsmen, who had one job, and one job only, to do. But not really ... I think it is the endless variety of my daily work that keeps things challenging and interesting. But enough talk - if I don't get back to my workbench right now, there won't be a print to send out this coming weekend!

David
Monday, February 14, 2005

(Here's the print in context in the Treasure Chest series.)

Posted by Dave Bull at 08:38 PM | Comments (1)