Can't understand why nobody but me showed up for work today!

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:52 AM | Comments (6)

The subscriptions for the new 'Arts of Japan' series are rolling in, one by one. I'd love to be able to say 'pouring in', but let's keep this real!

When I reply with a short 'thank you' note, I usually include something like this: "As you might have seen from the RoundTable blog, it's going to be a month or so before this one is ready to ship - making those cases here 'in house' is going to take quite a lot of time. I hope to have the first print ready to fly by the start of April. Thanks for your patience ..."

Most people reply (if at all) with a simple "No problem!". This morning though, a slightly longer reply came in:

You know, I'm probably not alone in this: one of the things I really enjoy about subscribing to your series is that I _do_ have to wait for it. It's something we don't have to do very much these days. I _like_ that I pay for something, and then a while later (but not so long that I notice that, "Hey, wasn't I supposed to have received that already?") I am surprised and delighted when it shows up on my doorstep. It's decidedly old school, and wonderful.

I understand these sentiments, and - of course - concur. But it reminded me of an experience I had some years ago when the original Treasure Chest was under way. The number of collectors was 'OK', but there was still plenty of room left for more. One day I received a sudden flood of subscriptions (nearly a dozen of them), and it turned out that I had been written up by Jason Kottke, a popular blogger (one of the earliest, actually).

David Bull is an artist who makes fantastic woodblock prints. He doesn't number his prints, doesn't sell through collectors, doesn't even offer individual prints, and yet he's been making a living from his art for more than 16 years. He sells subscriptions of his prints through his site ...

(He actually meant 'doesn't sell through galleries', but the error will live on forever, I guess ...)

When all this happened, I was happy, and then I was sad. Originally 'happy', because of course this was a nice boost to my work, and having a group of new subscribers helped very much. 'Sad' because of what happened over the next few months - over half of these new collectors either quit, or became delinquent.

I learned something important through this episode. Up to that time, if you had asked me (as people frequently did in interviews) what 'type' of person was a typical collector, I would have replied, "No 'type', really. Some are young, some are older, some Japanese, some westerner, everything from the town baker to a long distance truck driver ... The only common thread seems to be that they are interested in my work, which is a kind of circular answer ..."

But the Kottke experience taught me that there was indeed something common to my long-time subscribers, which I hadn't really understood up to that point. The people who saw his post, clicked over to my website, did a quick scan of the info, then clicked 'Subscribe' ... these people were a type who live in a much faster paced, click click move move go go environment than I do. They weren't (as a group) suitable people to become collectors of my work.

Without wanting to try and get (too) pretentious about this, it really does seem as though my collectors and I are a self-selected group; a group of 'slow lifers'. Both I - who makes these things - and you - who 'consume' them - simply have to be willing to take it easy, or at least accept the fact that this is going . to . take . time ...

So it was that when I made that little explanation video for the Treasure Chest concept last year, I - very consciously - began it with a very slow-paced introduction. If the viewer can't even get through the first 60 seconds and clicks away somewhere, then ... well ... perhaps this stuff isn't really their kind of thing, anyway!

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:25 AM | Comments (4)

(compiled from news agency reports)

Japan logged a record ¥1.48 trillion trade deficit in January as an appreciating yen, a growing reliance on foreign energy, and a slump in woodblock print sales slashed exporters' profits and boosted imports, the Finance Ministry said Monday.

Purchases of crude oil jumped 12.7 percent, but purchases of liquefied natural gas soared 74.3 percent in January. Trade with China for the month logged a deficit of ¥588 billion as exports sank 20.1 percent while imports grew 7.5 percent. Exports of woodblock prints to the US and major European countries plummeted in the period, as a very popular series from the famous Seseragi Studio came to an end and was not immediately replaced by a newer one. Meanwhile imports of steel surged 65.6 percent and imports of communications devices grew 55.2 percent, the Finance Ministry said.

All these factors resulted in the trade deficit ballooning 207.7 percent from January 2011 — the most in a single month since record-keeping began in 1979. It is also the first time the deficit has broken ¥1 trillion in a single month.

"The trend for Japan's overseas trade, which has been in the red since last year, appears to be continuing," Kohei Okazaki, an economist at Nomura Securities Co., told The Japan Times.

A Finance Ministry official acknowledged that import costs are still growing overall, with fuel costs remaining high. With Europe's sovereign debt crisis beginning to impact Asia and other regions, it is becoming harder for exports to recover, he said. The large deficit was highlighted by a sharp rise in energy imports, which have been surging in the wake of nuclear power plant shutdowns caused by the Fukushima crisis.

"Given that there is very little we can do to control the raw energy costs, we are putting pressure on the woodblock print studio to resume exports as quickly as possible," the Ministry official was quoted as saying, adding that they had high hopes that a recently announced expansion of the workforce there would provide the extra boost necessary to pull Japan's exports back into balance.

"It's all in their hands now," he said. "We can only hope and pray that they receive enough support from their customers to get the job done, and save the nation."

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:14 AM | Comments (5)

Here are a few items from my mailbox over the past couple of days:

I have not yet received print #18. The packages you send usually arrive 10 days to 14 days after my payment is made to Paypal. I put the payment through on January 24 but so far, the last print hasn't made it to my mailbox.

As of this date my 18th print has yet to find its way home-any ideas? I thought it would have found its way by now.

I have not yet received this print. Would you please check to see that it was sent?

One is an anomaly; two is a coincidence; three is a mob!

Something is going on, and given that these reports are coming from different countries, the finger points at the Japanese side. The batch was sent off on the 25th (or perhaps the 26th) of January. I made the post office run myself with the 80-odd packages all stacked up in cartons on the back of my bike, dropping them off at my local branch.

I've talked to the postal people this morning, and although these packages carry no tracking numbers (being 'small packets'), they have told me that they will begin an investigation.

And if any of the collectors have received the package, would you please let me know, so we can at least confirm that the entire bag full hasn't been 'lost' somewhere.

Sheesh ... that would be just what I need right now ...

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:45 AM | Comments (7)

It's time for the 'once every couple of years' announcement of a new series!

No beating about the bush - let's get right to it! Here we are:

If the lettering on that small image isn't clear, then click it for an enlargement, or ... just go and see the real thing!

Few things to mention:

- the question of whether to make 'big prints' vs 'small prints' was really not on the table this time around. In the current climate, keeping things fairly small scale - and thus affordable - was a prime consideration.
- as I have mentioned to a couple of the collectors in direct emails, this series has the potential to be a much larger affair than a single 18-piece set. 'Arts of Japan' is a pretty much endless theme. Now although I currently have no specific plans for extending it, it would probably be a good idea to keep my options open, so with that in mind, I'm going to make this present series a mix of 'major' and 'minor' arts, rather than putting all the 'big ones' into it ... And we'll see that with the very first print - the Hokusai image of two Kyogen Dancers.

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:06 AM | Comments (1)

With the end of the Mystique of the Japanese Print series near at hand, many of the display cases for the set - which have been on desktops (real desktops) all over the world for the past couple of years (as we saw in this post from some time back) - are about to be switched over from 'display mode' to 'storage mode'. I suppose that most people will do just what I intend to do with mine - put it up on a bookshelf.

After all, you're going to need that space on your desk for ... something else, quite soon!

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:42 AM | Comments (4)

The last few blog posts from here have all been over on the Mokuhankan Conversations side; time to update the Woodblock RoundTable too!

The occasion? Well, I'm unemployed again! :-)

Meaning, of course, that I have come to the end of another print series. The final impressions on the final print in the Mystique of the Japanese Print series were done this morning. The collector copies have actually all been sent out already; what I finished up today were the last of the ones that will be sent out as 'back numbers' as time goes by.

After I finished up my work, I grabbed my little point-and-shoot and shot a quick video of the scene behind my workbench ... I myself may be 'finished' for a while, but there is plenty of other work going on here today!

Let me introduce the three people you see there: Tsushima-san is the printer; she is working on the 'Plum Blossoms' print that is being offered as her 'Debut Print' this month. Details on this are in the upcoming newsletter, and I'll post about it over on the Conversations blog soon.

She's making two copies on each sheet of paper, printing them 'heads 'n tails'.

Behind her, Ishigami-san is packing newsletters, putting the ones for domestic shipment into clear envelopes. She'll do the ones for overseas delivery tomorrow ...

Next to her at the long stand-up table, Yasui-san is packing some of the prints that I have just finished making. I finished that batch last night, and she has taken them out of the drying boards, and is mounting them ready for storage, and later posting to collectors. You can see how we use a little jig for scoring the story paper so that the print mounting board fits neatly inside.

All that's missing in this little video is the guy at the main printing bench ... but as I said, his work is done for a while. He'll be taking the rest of this month 'off' from printmaking, while he gets the next series planned and ready for production, and of course also works on the new Mokuhankan projects that have been discussed over on the Conversations.

Thanks for watching! [For those curious, the music we were playing in the background is the Japanese guitar duo 'Gontiti' - pronounced 'Gonchichi']

Posted by Dave Bull at 2:11 AM | Comments (4)