A small collection of photos from the exhibition is now online.

I'll try and get the video version tomorrow ... not sure if I'll have time ... A 14 minute video tour has now been added to the page!

Posted by Dave Bull at 12:36 AM | Comments (2)

OK, here's a post with a request to make ...

Given that the number of subscribers hasn't exactly run through the roof on this new series (76 at the moment), I'm going to have to start to 'get out there' to try and get some attention.

But I'm not quite sure what kind of places to focus on. Does it matter? It certainly seems to ... As an example, I had an experience a couple of years ago where I got what I thought was a good piece of publicity, but which turned out to be not quite as it seemed at first. Perhaps you have heard of the blogger Jason Kottke (one of the earliest people making waves in that field). A couple of years ago, after I wrote to him about my work he decided to write a little feature about it, and this brought in nearly a dozen new subscribers over the next few days. Sounds good.

Unfortunately, around half of those people ended up quitting or became 'no-pay', I suppose because of the demographic involved. So it's not enough just 'getting publicity' and running the numbers up; the 'core' market for what I do is obviously more limited than the overall 'general' market.

Many of you who are reading these RoundTable posts are already collectors - or potential collectors - so are thus kind of 'selected', and this gives me a chance to glean some interesting data. If I were to think of people like you as being my best potential audience, where would I reach 'you'? You (perhaps) don't read kottke.org, but what kind of places do you read?

If you don't mind, please drop some links into the Comments section below. Please give me a good cross-section of places on the internet where 'my kind of people' spend their time!

Posted by Dave Bull at 10:27 AM | Comments (10)

Today I received a few snapshots from the woodshop that is building the cases for the Mystique prints. This looks like such a fun job ... I wish I could be working on these!

No I don't.

Yes I do!

...

!

Anyway, here they are ... They are using paulownia wood for the main 'carcass'. We had discussed using a hardwood for the top panel, because I was a bit uncertain that paulownia would be strong enough after the deep slot was cut into it, but they came up with a tenoned style of construction that gives plenty of strength. This is going to save us a huge amount in shipping costs.

The guy is brushing glue over the tenon, ready to fit it into the slot on the side piece.

The cases are being made up in a 'square' shape, and get their rounding after the thing has been glued together.

We have a small problem in that the main batch of 200 isn't due to arrive here until the first week in April - after the exhibition - but I of course need one to show there. They originally said 'no can do', as they are doing everything in assembly line fashion, but I pushed a bit and they pulled some parts off the line and put one together for me.

They're going to send it over tomorrow, so I'll try and get some better shots then ...

But so much going on right now! I finished another two colour blocks for the first pair of prints this morning, but then had to put that aside because Ichikawa-san brought over another ten finished copies of the final Solitudes book, and I had to spend the rest of the afternoon getting those packed into their own paulownia boxes and then out the door.

Tomorrow is going to be the final day of preparation and packing for the exhibition - the rental truck and driver will be pulling up to the front door around Sunday noon, and off we'll go ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 8:57 AM | Comments (1)

I've been so tied to the workbenches, I haven't kept up with these RoundTable updates .. Let's jam all the recent news into one quick post tonight!

Work on the set of blocks for the first pair of prints is proceeding well, although in a bit of a disjointed pattern. About a week back, as I was just about to begin the main carving (after finishing up the blocks for the decorative border), I 'took stock' of what I was about to do, and made a quick re-shuffle of the plan.

The original idea had been to use the Meiji cherry blossom print to start off the series, but - for a few reasons - I have done a 'switcheroo', and that image will now appear as #13 in the series, next April.

One reason for the switch was the time pressure - with the exhibition coming up on the 29th, and the first print 'promised' for early April, it just wasn't looking feasible to get the first pair done in time - with that complex design included. If that had been the only factor, I might have still pressed ahead with it, but when I dug into the pile of blank blocks that I ordered for these first few prints, I found that they really are a lot worse than I first thought when I gave them a 'once over' when I opened the box.

I used one of the hardest blocks in the batch for the decorative border pattern, but there are no others suitable for use as the keyblock for this Meiji design. It will simply have to wait until I can get a block of the proper density and smoothness.

So I hit the books looking for another suitable 'opener' for the series, and found it in a collection of Hiroshige fan prints. A number of years back, when I made my Surimono Albums, I made it a kind of habit to open a number of the sets with a Fuji-san design, and indeed, did the same thing for the previous Hanga Treasure Chest. I'm a sucker for these self-imposed 'traditions', so I made the quick decision to use it, prepared a tracing, and got to work.

Now I said a 'disjointed' work pattern, and what I mean is that, because I'm still under time pressure because of the exhibition, rather than carve images #1 and #2 bit by bit together as though they were a single design, I carved just the right-hand side of each block in the set, and ran up a quick proof, giving me something to show at the exhibition.

(Spoiler Alert) To see the proof, head over to the Mystique web page, and select the first print ...

With the proof safely in my file, ready for display, I cleaned up the printing gear, re-set the carving bench, and am now cutting the keyblock for the left-hand of the pair, which will be #2 in the set.

Confused?

Here's the set so far ... I should be finished the key for the actor print later this evening; It's all done but the face, and a bit of calligraphy:

And the others - all blank on the left, but with the colour blocks for the Fuji design on the right ...

 

 

 

 

I should perhaps also mention something about the subscriptions. Last time we mentioned this, I had jumped out to a strong start, with 50+ people signing up in the first week or so, and was just about to send out the information pamphlets to potential collectors here in Japan.

How did it go? Well, that strong start was indeed some kind of 'beginner's luck'. The current total stands at 67 people, with 12 from Japan. And those 12 are all long-time collectors, people who would have signed on for the next series pretty much sight-unseen.

More than 600 pamphlets sent out, mostly to people with at least a general interest in my work, and that's been the reaction. Silence. So it seems that I'm pretty much striking out here on this side of the Pacific.

But it's early days yet. The current collectors still haven't even received their final print in the Solitudes series (Ichikawa-san is busily sewing away still...) so it's perhaps too much to ask them to show a lot of interest in the new series yet.

It'll come down to what happens at the exhibition. That too, hasn't garnered a whole lot of reaction from my publicity endeavours. Around 200 information packets went out to magazines, newspapers, and radio + TV programs, but no nibbles yet ...

Anyway. At this point I've done pretty much all I can do on that stuff. What happens will happen. It's my job now just to get these next couple of prints made as nicely as possible, get them out the door, and then get busy on the next ones.

With less than a week left before the exhibition, I had also better get ready and design and build the display materials. The gallery is a very small place, so this won't be anywhere near as much work as in previous years, but I'd still like it to be a bit more than simply 12 frames hanging on the wall.

But for now ... back downstairs. That kabuki face awaits!

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:02 AM | Comments (2)

Helper Ichikawa-san returned a batch of the finished books for Chapter 12 yesterday evening, so I had to put aside the Mystique carving work and get some paulownia boxes ready.

The company that made these for me definitely has a sub-standard idea of what constitutes 'nicely finished'. It's not as though I was asking them to 'go the extra mile' ... I just want them to 'get to the finish line' in one piece ...

So each box needs a going-over, and many of them aren't making the cut. I ordered 100, and have orders for 48, so the worst ones are getting set aside without any attempt to even try to get them in shape.

The ones that seem acceptable get a little touch up with sandpaper:

And then get their label glued on (on the flip side of the front flap):

They certainly feel 'empty' with just one book inside ...

... but should have a much nicer 'feel' once they are at home on the collectors' bookcases, with the 12 chapters nicely stacked on the four inner shelves (three chapters for each seasonal group).

Ten is all I had time for today; the shipping boxes are due to arrive tomorrow, and out these will go, to be followed by more batches over the next week or so ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 3:38 AM | Comments (0)

Today is the last day for the 'early bird' special for subscriptions to the new series - Mystique of the Japanese Print. People placing their order by March 15th will receive one of the prints I used for my new year 'card' a few years ago:

(If you already have that one, of course I can substitute something else ...)

For information on the series, visit the Mystique website!

Posted by Dave Bull at 3:38 AM | Comments (2)

So nice to be carving boxwood again! The work went very quickly today; I began by cutting out all the 'easy' parts of that block - the outlines - then cleared it all off before beginning the calligraphy.

And here is the finished block, after taking a trial impression for checking and adjusting:

Here are those first two blocks:

Those blocks are cut on a fairly hard cherry, but as the back sides were much softer, I used those for blocks that will be used to print plain colour. You can see where I ended up splitting some of the wood, and exposing the underlying plywood base. This is an 'unhappy' batch of wood (as I mentioned in a post a few days ago). Matsumura-san had them planed by a new craftsman he had found, and this guy isn't very good. That particular block has a cherry layer now only about 2~3mm thick, and it's pretty obvious what happened while he was planing it ... he just kept digging deeper and deeper trying to get rid of chips and scratches in the surface.

Anyway, that's the first stage finished - these are the blocks that will be used to print the outlines and decorative borders on all the prints in this series. Next step - starting tomorrow morning - the block set for the first print pair ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:40 AM | Comments (4)

Unlike the previous Hanga Treasure Chest series, the prints in this one will have a 'unified' appearance. In the old days, whenever prints were issued in sets, it was common to include a 'cartouche' as part of the design, in which both the series title, and the title of each particular print, would be written. And so it will be with this series.

But with a slight twist. As has become obvious by now - from the images of the blocks that I have shown - I am making these prints in pairs. Not two copies of the same image side-by-side (which was frequently done whenever a high volume of prints was needed), but two different images from the series. Numbers 1 and 2 are being made together, then 3 and 4 ... etc. etc.

You have already seen the block for the decorative border pattern, and could clearly see the way that the two prints are arranged on the block. The next one to be carved will be for the border outlines, the cartouches, and the series title. But because the print title will change each time, it cannot be included on this block, but will be carved together with one of the blocks for each particular design. The cartouche block with the series title, will leave a blank space where the print title will appear later.

I made my first dummy images (the one for the pamphlet, etc.) using computer text output for the titles, but for the real prints, I am using real calligraphy. Long-time collector Mrs. Tauchi (who appeared in this newsletter story) has come through again with some beautiful work.

It is extremely delicate calligraphy, and contains lines far too thin to be carved on 'normal' cherry wood. I need something harder, and the standard material for this is tsuge (boxwood), the same wood used for traditional wooden combs.

This though, brings another problem. In the old days, the carver would look at a design, figure out what parts of it (if any) required boxwood, and then place an order with his block supplier for a plank with inlays at the appropriate place(s), all planed perfectly smooth, ready to go. But the last traditional block supplier (Shimano Shintaro) died more than 10 years ago, and in any case, he didn't do this kind of work anyway. Each time I have needed boxwood inlays in my blocks, I have had to do them myself.

Let's begin ...

First step is to work out the places where the inserts will go, and dig some holes (I use a router for this). You can now also see something else about the series design concept - each pair will have one print in vertical orientation, and one horizontal.

The holes are about 4mm deep, and I will be inlaying slips of boxwood about 5~6 mm thick:

I cut the pieces slightly oversize, and then use a file to slowly bring them down to the correct dimensions, testing constantly as I get close. It's difficult to get them exactly right, because you can't put them into the holes for testing ... (you can never get them out again). (I'll be using the reverse face of this block, so can't drill holes all the way through ...)

The final step is to put a very slight bevel on each edge, so that they just squeeze into their holes snug and firm.

When they are ready, I lightly glue them, tap them into place, and clamp them tightly until they are set.

I have no photo of the next step ... I can't do it and shoot at the same time. But it's not complicated; I just plane them down as far as I dare without nicking the main block surface anywhere, then use a light file to bring them down to nearly flush.

For the final step, I don't use sandpaper, as that leaves the surface of the wood 'torn', but take the blade out of the plane, and stand it on end to use as a 'scraper blade'; it pulls off the finest of shavings. For the final few strokes, you let up on the pressure, and nothing much more than 'dust' comes off the surface, leaving a very nice joint:

You can see the different piece of wood there clearly of course, but you can't feel it!

So there we are, ready for Tauchi-san's calligraphy (on delicate gampi paper) to be pasted down and carved.

Each time I do this inlaying job, I get a kind of strange feeling about it. Back in the old days (Edo into early Meiji) there were many thousands of men working in the woodblock field, making not just the famous prints we remember, but books, posters, wrapping papers ... anything that needed printing. There were of course dozens of block suppliers providing the wood for all this carving. Not much of the work (in percentage terms) needed these boxwood inlays, but it would still have been a common thing for the suppliers to do. They must have been - of course - very good at it.

That tradition is now totally lost. None of the carvers now working have any experience of cutting boxwood at all, and there is certainly nowhere that they can 'order' a block like this, even if they had the requirement for it.

So we have this bizarre situation where this Canadian guy is sitting here in this little workshop, and is kind of the 'inheritor' to that entire tradition ... all those thousands of terrifically skilled men, making all those famous prints that we now treasure. Their tradition is now still living ... only here.

Me.

I just can't get my head around that.

I don't mean to imply that I am the 'only one left' in the world of traditional carving. That's not true at all. There are maybe a half-dozen people left who can carve at a decent level, and I'm not even the youngest (that honour goes to Koike-san, about whom I wrote more than ten years ago.) But they never get the chance to even attempt this sort of thing, as they never choose their own work, but just sit and wait for whatever publishers send them, and no publisher would think of doing work like this these days.

I was talking to carver Asaka-san (a very fine craftsman) about this a while ago, and he just shook his head in amazement at what I am doing. But would he like to be doing this? There is just no such thought ...

So ... it's just me. Tomorrow morning I will begin carving that lettering, full of pleasure at the feel of the blade slicing that beautifully hard and smooth wood, but also with sadness ... that nobody else also enjoys that pleasure.

Just. Me.

Posted by Dave Bull at 10:40 AM | Comments (2)

Exactly six days ago, in the previous post here on the RoundTable, I showed a photo of my 'office', with a woodblock sitting on the desk where I had just pasted down the first of the tracings (hanshita) for the upcoming first pair of prints in the new Mystique series. Since then, I have been completely silent.

Silent - but busy.

Hmm. It's a bit difficult to see the surface of the wood clearly with the desk light on. If I turn it off and leave just the light from the window, it's better: (these are clickable)

And let's move in for a closer peek ... (although at this level, it sure looks messy!)

I kept track of the time spent on this during the week. The 'gaps' are of course for other work ... bookkeeping, etc.

	Hours
Thursday evening:	4
Friday morning	3
- evening	4
Saturday morning	3
- afternoon	2
- evening	3
Sunday morning	3
- afternoon	2
- evening	4
Monday morning	3
- afternoon	2
- evening	3.5
Tuesday evening	3.5
Wednesday morning	4
- afternoon	2
Total:	46

So there's six days of my life gone ... in a pile of tiny wood chips on the floor around the carving bench! But it has been a most enjoyable and peaceful six days of work - very nice to be 'back at it'!

Posted by Dave Bull at 12:47 PM | Comments (7)

These periods - the overlaps between the end of one print series and the beginning of another one - are 'the best of times, and the worst of times' for me. As much as I would like to kick back and relax after three years of work on the Solitudes print series, the deadline for shipping the first Mystiques print is just over three weeks away, and there's no sitting still!

When I came back into my 'office' this afternoon after a nice long bath down at the Post Office, I stood there for a minute looking around, and thought it might be fun to share it with you ... Here are three snapshots (click for enlargements), each one with an accompanying list of things you can hunt for, if you are so inclined!

• wood swatches with sample wood stain colours for the Mystique box
• 'To Do' list
• first wood block for the Mystique series, with hanshita pasted down
• trusty Canon printer, loaded with paper, ready for the first invoicing for the Mystique series (probably later tonight)
• small white box with Your First Print CDs, now getting empty, and waiting to be refilled from the stockroom upstairs
• another 'To Do' list
• Zoom recorder, waiting for the next 'A Story A Week' recording session, probably tomorrow evening, if I get the story done by then
• one volume of the large 16-volume Kodansha encyclopedia, waiting to go downstairs to the scanner, for preparation of the hanshita for the second Mystique design
• stack of Edo and Meiji e-hon, being mined for image ideas (these aren't mine, but belong to young printer Ueda-san)
• bill clip (getting fatter by the day)

Now if we turn around ...

• pile-of-junk Epson printer, spitting out another one of the hanshita, ready for pasting down
• box of woodblocks for the Mystique series, just arrived from Matsumura-san the other day, and eagerly opened right in the entranceway, because he had promised me 'special hand planing by an expert!' ... [comment censored (save it for another post later, Dave ...)]
• stack of moistened newsprint, containing the small slips of paper for the cover labels to be glued onto the 'Seacoast in Spring' books
• batch of paulownia boxes for Solitudes books (five of them, from the first carton to be cracked open), waiting for 'touch up' sanding and general 'fixing' - as much as is possible, anyway
• stack of sample alternate paulownia boxes for the Solitudes books
• stack of 'art boards', within which the Seacoast in Spring prints have now finished drying, and are waiting to be checked, signed, sealed, trimmed, and FIRED OUT OF HERE (sorry 'bout that ...)
• stack of pale yellow washi sheets for the covers of the Seacoast in Spring books, just brought upstairs after having been printed with the silver pattern
• the first few 'returns' from the 500+ pile of exhibition pamphlets sent out the other day (whenever there are than many pieces being mailed, some of the address are bound to have 'expired')
• tissue box, and associated garbage bag (earlier this week, the 'hinoki' pollen hit this area ...)
• embossing press, ready for action on the Seacoast in Spring prints

And turning a bit further ...

• stack of about 100 sheets of Iwano's hosho paper (not for me, but being sent to the [Baren Mall])
• severe ripples in stack of 100 sheets of paper, due to completely incompetent sizing from Misawa-san, who is obviously coming to 'retirement time', whether by his own choice, or that of the market ...
• sheet of blank 'hanshita' paper - laminate of extremely thin gampi and a thicker base sheet - ready for feeding into Mr. Epson
• clear plastic folder containing completed tax returns, ready to be run down to the local tax office and turned in
• calculator; hopefully soon to be put back in the drawer and LEFT ALONE FOR A WHILE (sorry 'bout that ...)
• remnants of breakfast: coffee cup, and small cup that held some granola ... (I always know exactly where to find these, when I start hunting for them each morning ...)
• second wood block for the Mystique series, with hanshita pasted down

But that's enough for now ... I think I had better choose a waiting job, and get to it! :-)

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:01 PM | Comments (2)

I mentioned that I would show some of the proof stages, so here they are. A couple of notes:

• most of these were not intended as 'finished' (possible) prints; they were made to experiment with some particular feature (or with something 'left out' so that other parts would be clear)
• they were made in pairs, as you see them here, and in this order. The first pair was the very first 'run-through' with the blocks

If you have comments about any particular image, you can refer to it with by number - which you can see by rolling over an image (or clicking for an enlargement).

Posted by Dave Bull at 12:08 PM | Comments (1)

Continued from [Seacoast in Spring - 9] | Starting point of the thread is [Seacoast in Spring - 1]

We got a bit of colour on the fish yesterday, and although that plain grey/brown tone brought us pretty close to what I actually saw that day down at the seashore, I think I'd like to take it a bit further ... 'artistic license', you know! Let's put a touch of colour along his spine:

And a bit of subtle colour on his underside:

I have no idea if these colours match anything that would be found on any of the fish in the area where I have been camping, and perhaps the fishermen among you are groaning at this, but there he is ...

And we have one more to finish it off.

I have reversed the usual procedure for this printing session - instead of beginning with the keyblock, I decided to hold it back until the end. By doing so, we get an excellent demonstration of just how vividly everything changes when there is a strong key line in place:

"I remember one of the 'lessons' that I learned on the first trips in this series - that if I stop moving for a while, and just sit still, things start to happen. So I plop down in the pool and sit quietly, trying to avoid making waves. My reward comes less than a minute later. Coming into view from 'out of nowhere', a minnow-like little fish - perhaps only about 3 centimetres long - swims into view, poking his nose into the crevices between the little stones on the seabed. He seems completely oblivious to my presence, and swims between my legs, suspended in the completely transparent water. I can't resist the impulse to see what happens when I poke a finger down into the water, and the result is predictable - he simply disappears ... instantly."

So there we have it - the last of the 12 prints in this set!

I have a lot to talk about yet with this series of prints, and over the next few days, I'll be making some more postings to discuss some of them, but right now this afternoon, there just isn't time for that. I have to get these things dried off and sent out to Ichikawa-san - who is still busy sewing up a batch of the books - and once they are out of here the first priority facing me will be to nail down the first two 'Mystiques' designs, and get carving.

The April 1st shipping deadline is not very far away ... and unlike this Solitudes series, which has had very flexible 'deadlines', the Mystique series is going to run like clockwork!

The thread continues in [Seacoast in Spring - 11] ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 3:17 PM | Comments (2)