Written on December 31, 1989 [Permalink]

December 26

Started carving the kimono pattern for Sarumaru-san. It's a toughie, as the kimono colour was brown, resulting in an illegible hanshita. I drew in the lines of the pattern before pasting it down, but there's no way I could retain the character of the brush strokes without having a clear view of the original lines. A 'real' carver would be able to get by with just a rough guide, but I just don't have enough experience yet to 'fake it' like that. My pattern will turn out to be a 'good' pattern, but it won't stand close comparison with the original.

Mailed all the New Year cards. As the washi was kind of thin, I'm putting them in envelopes to keep them from getting bashed up. This means that the outside of the envelope has to be marked with the characters for 'New Year Card' to ensure delivery on January 1st. The Post Office apparently keeps a rubber stamp at the counter for doing this, but they couldn't find it! So ... 90-odd envelopes get 'decorated' with my hand-written scrawl ...

Also mailed off a dozen or so little flyers to local newspapers, etc. announcing the upcoming 'exhibition'. If we're going to do it, we might as well try and get some people out ...

December 31

Worked on the poem and almost got it finished, leaving just the last little group of characters before knocking off at about 2:00 AM. About 16 hours or so spent on my knees crouched over a little table, with a 40 watt bulb hanging down in front. There doesn't seem to be any problems with my legs or body yet, but I certainly wonder what it would be like if I was to keep this up for years on end. Would I eventually start walking around like some of the older printers that I have met? They all look as though they were astride invisible horses!

So that's the end of the first year of the project. After the mailman came today with the post office remittances, I closed off the books for the year.

• Income (from print sales) 1,206,530
• Expenses (printmaking related) 1,371,153
• Loss 164,623

There is a stock of unused washi, backboard, blocks, cases, etc. worth about 180,000 on hand, as well as 176 saleable prints. Accounts Receivable stands at 20,000, and A/P is zero. Cash on hand runs to 455,559 (in petty cash, and the bank and post office accounts). I have sold 119 prints (and 3 frames). 79 free copies have been given away, either to friends or for promotional purposes. There have been eight newspaper mentions/articles, 1 magazine article, and one TV 'show'. Total print production has been 8 new prints, and one New Year card. Nineteen people 'signed up' to become subscribers, of whom 15 remain.

The loss stems from a few points. 1) Included in the expenses are all the costs from our summer 'vacation' trip (about 120,000). 2) There is on hand a considerable pile of unused supplies (most notably the 35 or so cases). 3) There is a good pile of unsold prints. Had we been able to collect just one or two more customers, we would have broken even.

It is interesting that because the first customers didn't start up until summertime, all the revenue was gained in the last half of the year (60% in the last three months), but the expenses were spread over the whole year.

It's been a fun 'hobby'. Can it become our living next year?