Written on January 14, 1990 [Permalink]

January 10

When we dropped the kids off at the Hoikuen this morning a few people mentioned seeing the notice on the show in this morning's Yomiuri. Uekuri-san sure acts fast! He has put a little photo and blurb in the Tama edition pages. Nice help!

After I opened up the gallery, I noticed a message left on my pad by some people from Hino, who must have come around after I had left. When I get a minute at the end of the week I'll drop them a line Arai-san from the Nishi Tama Shimbun visited for a short interview and photos, and a Mr. Kato from Hachioji came by. He is the 'shacho' of the tama ban Yomiuri edition, and interviewed me for nearly an hour. Apparently he has some kind of column in the Sunday edition, and intends to put something in this coming week. Is the Yomiuri trying to keep mye alive? I would never dare ask for this kind of support! When he left the door, a block-long limo slid up and whisked him off, with Yomiuri flags flying from the fenders. Michiyo came home last night, and she spelled me at 2:30 so that I could get home for the first English class of the term (number 1,961 of my career here in Japan!). She says that there was a couple more visitors who wandered through before she left at about 5:00.

January 11

A few more visitors today, including a woman from Hachioji who was a member of the Gendai Josei Hanga Kyokai, a women's print group. All of the visitors had seen the notice in the Yomiuri yesterday. It's good fun talking to these people with my stumbly Japanese, as most people seem quite tolerant of the errors, and are willing to try and communicate.

January 12

A busy morning. First visitors were Azuma-san (again!) and a gallery owner he brought along from Higashi-Ome. She offered me exhibition space in her gallery, but I'm not sure if she means 'real soon', or after another year's set is ready. She's going to phone Michiyo to chat about it. Next in were the members from Fureai who hadn't yet been in. While they were there, eight of the members of the Karuta club that I've been attending came by, filling up the room completely. I'm not sure what to do about them, in that pretty well all of them want prints, but only one by one, rather than sets. Just after they all left, Emiko and her daughter came in to look around, and just as they were leaving, a pair of women I didn't know came. They looked, talked, looked some more, and signed up - one of them for next year's set, and the other one undecided about which she'd rather have, the prints she saw today, or future prints. So, even if nothing else happens in the next couple of days, this little show will have been worth it. Thank you Fureai, for setting it up! In the evening, after the last English class, wrapped up the 20-odd Sarumaru Dayu [1-9] prints for mailing in the morning.

January 13

21 people in today, 8 of whom were new to me. When I got there in the morning, after stopping at the post office, I found a note from a late visitor last night - an Ozawa-san, ordering a 'set' of prints. Michiyo talked to her on the phone later in the day, and confirmed that she wants to subscribe to the coming set. That's three so far from this show. One of the visitors was one of the women who subscribed yesterday. This time she brought her husband, and I thought that maybe she was trying to talk him into it, but he seemed to enjoy the stuff too. There were enough people in during the day to keep it interesting, talking about printmaking ... Most of them took the pamphlet, and its possible that some of them may call back when they've had a chance to think about it.

January 14

34 people in today, for the last day of the event. A bit of bad news - I 'lost' a customer. The Ozawa-san who had talked to Michiyo on the telephone last night came in, and turned out to be one of the two ladies who had told me they would like to subscribe the day before! I'd actually counted her twice - there are really only two people, not three. Anyway, she confirmed that it is the new set she wants, not the old one.

A couple more of the ladies from the Karuta group came by. I've pretty well decided to let them have what they want, in ones and twos, rather than try and put down some 'rule' about sets only. They've been friendly to me, and there's no reason I should make it difficult for them to get some prints.

A good half of the 34 people were strangers, who had read one of the various newspaper mentions of the show. All looked around, talked a bit, and then took a pamphlet. Late in the afternoon, Michiko Sato came in. She used to be our English student, but had to quit because she was just too busy as a schoolteacher. She signed on for the new set! It turns out that she knows the two women who have already joined, and heard about the exhibition from them.

At just after six, we rolled it all up and took a cab home. Final 'score': 95 adult attendees, of whom just under half were strangers, 3 subscribers, and about 5 or 6 newspaper insertions (one of which was Mr Kato's 'column' in this morning's Yomiuri, which turned out to be simply a couple of paragraphs cribbed from my pamphlet and the 'Foto' article). Considering that the room rental for the week is 1,000 yen, and the publicity was free, it was obviously worth doing. It brings up the question of whether we should try for something downtown, going for a 'somewhat' wider audience...

All that's left now, is the dozen or so thank you letters...