Posted by Dave Bull at 4:40 AM, February 2, 2011 [Permalink]
Carving of the colour blocks for the Urashima Taro design is coming along well, and should be done by the end of the week.
I had to call up Kaori Seki - the designer of this image - this evening to ask about a detail of the design, and while talking with her, asked if it would be alright if I uploaded a couple of other images of her work, so that people could get an idea of what she is doing. She said OK, so here you go! (clickable)
These are scanned postcards from the five that I purchased from her at the Design Festa last year. The top one is from a series she has done on historical episodes. Her spelling on the title is a bit off, but if you Google 'Yoshitsune and Benkei' you will learn about the famous battle at Gojo Bridge.
The second is from a set of 12 images of the traditional calendar months. This one is equivalent to October/November period. I don't know if there is a 'story' behind her image ...
As I mentioned before, when I visited her home she pulled out book after book and box after box of drawings and fully worked-out images. I thought it was a treasure trove, but I hope she can start to work on her p/r a bit more, because hiding this stuff away isn't going to help anybody!
If you have any comments, please leave them below, and I'll see that they are passed on to her ...
Dave,
This work has a wonderful controlled energy. I think it has great promise and would love to see more
Barbara
Dave, looks like you may have found a designer for your mokuhankan projects, if her other work is anything like what you posted it sounds like she has a great eye for design. How about a subscription series of her work ? Possibly work as a team with your young printer. Who would do the carving, you ?
How about a subscription series of her work?
Funny you mention this just now ... At the craftsman's new year meeting last week, I sat next to Tsunehisa Sato-san, the youngest new member of the group, and who is training as a carver. As I wrote the other day, fate sent us a 'message' that we should do something together!
So ... while carving over the past few days I have been thinking of ways to pull some threads together: 1) Sato-san (according to Asaka-san the carver) is 'ready' for some work, as long as it is selected to suit the skills he has developed so far; 2) Kaori-chan is of course 'ready and willing' for any kind of design assignment; 3) Tetsui-san, the young printer who I mentioned in this post last week, although quite busy, is ready to have more work piled on his plate ...
So with a designer, carver, and printer all 'ready', all it needs is a publisher with some ideas and resources.
But where on earth are we going to find such a person? 
[I hope to have the announcement ready sometime next week ... so stand by!]
HOORAY! This is going to be good.
