'Ebi to Sumi'

October(?) 1983

My notebooks tells me that this was our New Year print for 1984, but I think that was just 'cheating'. I made it (a reproduction of a Hokusai painting) just for practice, as with all these prints, and then when the New Year approached, must have simply sent this one instead of making something more appropriate. (Does the lobster know what the charcoal is for?)

Time was tight; I was about to start a three-month leave of absence from the music business, with the main purpose of taking our new daughter on an around-the-world trip to visit grandparents in Japan and England. Of course, once we were in Japan, I would just 'maybe' have a chance to visit some printmaking craftsmen and publishers? As it turned out, I had very little chance to do so; we were only in Japan for a month or so, and most of that was taken up with visiting the family out in the countryside ... way out in the countryside. But I did have a chance to visit a couple of places where I could see printing being done, and frantically filled a little notebook with scribbled memos about what I was seeing.

I also stopped to see Shimano-san the block planer, and placed an order for some blocks to be shipped back to Canada, where they would be ready for me when I returned.