Written on April 4, 1989 [Permalink]

April 2

A translation day. After my Japanese lesson with Sakazaki-san, moistened a small pile of paper to print labels for the new cases (wherever they are!).

April 3

Another translation day. Printed the case labels, which came out O.K., and ran off some address labels for the inside of the cases (wherever they are!) on the word processor. Sent a letter to Kansaku Koichi, the president of Toyo University, and who apparently owns a copy of the Shunsho book. He is listed in the credits of the Gakken book on Hyakunin Isshu. I asked if I could visit and see the book. According to the illustrations in the Gakken book, the colours in his copy are in quite good condition (the Toyo Bunko copy is very faded). It would be no good for our reproduction though, because it's a later edition, and has different calligraphy.

Also started a jar of sumi. Smashed up some of the sumi seconds from Masayoshi and put then in a bottle to soak. Matsuzaki said to leave them soaking for a couple of months, and then grind them up and add nikawa to 'taste'.

Late Flash! During dinner, the parcel delivery man came ... with the 20 cases from Kogado. They look great! After the kids went to bed, I glued on this morning's labels. It really feels good to have the completed product ready to go! Now, if I could only be confident of getting some more blocks sometime this year ...

April 4

Zipped down to Sekaido in Tachikawa, and picked up a couple of 'nyubachi' for grinding pigments, and some more of the torinoko paper and backing board for packaging prints. Cut up, glued and labelled 20 folders.

I seem to be getting my terminology all mixed up on the different parts of this product. To get things straight: the print is slipped into a folder made up of a backing sheet, a holding sheet, and a cover sheet.

The 10 folders in a set go inside the cases from Kogado, made of blue cloth-covered board. The cases will be shipped inside a folded piece of cardboard, as will following prints.

As there were only 15 acceptable prints from the most recent batch, and 4 from the previous batch, I prepared 18 sets of cases, folders, prints (one print is hanging on the wall). Freebies will go to: Terry in Canada, the Sakazakis, Yamaguchi-san the paper maker, the block-maker Shimano-san, and to Matsuzaki-san.