Written on June 21, 1990 [Permalink]

June 14

Tomorrow is the 15th, and Ashida-san will be mailing most of the prints then, but I had some spare time in the early afternoon between classes, so I delivered the 'locals' on my bike. When I stopped by Yamashita-san's place with his print, he showed me some photos that he had taken in Nagano Prefecture last week - of the proposed location for his museum. It's on the Kisogawa between Nagoya and Matsumoto, and he's chosen a place accessible by Sunday drivers and tour buses, etc. There's no train access, but he doesn't feel that that is important. He seems pretty serious about this, and is proceeding step by step towards his goal, the establishment of the Yamashita Bijutsukan.

June 15~17

Finished the kimono outlines on Kakinomoto no Hitomaro [2-5], flipped the block over and started in on the patterns.

June 18

As the work seems to be going OK on this new one, I made 80 sheets of paper wet last night for a run of Dainagon Kinto [1-10] from last year's set. I never did print more than a couple of dozen last year, and there are none left at all. Printing sitting down, of course, but it was a disaster. Printing this wide black area is definitely the most difficult printing that I have ever tried to do. I must have just got lucky last year when I made the first batch, and I couldn't find the right combination this time. I gave up after about 20 sheets and packed it away, rather than continue to spoil more paper.

Gave the Moritas a call to see what was happening on the newsletter stuff. It's been months now since I sent it over there, and although I had told them 'no rush', this is getting ridiculous. Phyllis said that her husband would call me back later in the day.

June 19

Colour on the 20 sheets from yesterday. No problems with these blocks, but none of them are going to be good enough to send out, because of the crummy sumi printing. I think that I had the paper a bit on the dry side, and I'll try again next week.

Showa Printing called to say that my labels were ready. Did I forget to mention last week that I had given up for the moment on trying to get a good impression from the zinc plate, and had ordered some labels from these guys? Ashida-san is waiting impatiently for me to get some labels to her, so that she can pack all the prints from last year's set that are waiting in the drawer. She won't be able to make up complete sets yet, as I'm out of stock on a couple, but she wants to get going on it. I picked up the labels and found them OK. The paper colour matches my hand-printed labels pretty closely. The ink they used is if anything, too black, but the labels look fine, and I doubt very much if any of the customers will even notice the difference, let alone complain that these are not hand made. And for only a mere 36,000 yen (for two hundred A4 size sheets)!

June 20

Having the usual gloomy Wednesday (English preparation, of course!) when a call came in from a Leslie Lord at the Japan Times. It seems that Jean Pearce had taken one of the gift prints that I had sent her, and passed it on to the company chairman, Mr. Ogasawara. Mr. Lord was calling on his behalf for information on subscriptions. We arranged for me to send this year's four prints as a sample pak for his perusal, and I got the stuff in the mail about 15 minutes later! This could be good. I don't think that the Japan Times can really do much more for me than they have already, but having the contact with somebody that high up in the publishing business could lead to something ...

When I was at the post office sending the package, I picked up a copy of their little hand-out magazine, You & You. There seems like a couple of places in it where a feature on my work would fit nicely, so I prepared a sample print and letter. If Michiyo finishes the translation tonight, I'll send it off tomorrow.

June 21

Mr. Lord called back in the afternoon. Mr. Ogasawara would like to keep the four prints, but is not sure yet about a subscription. He would also like one of the prints from last year, Dainagon Kinto (I understand that he likes that poem). Of course, I wrapped it up and got it off right away, along with the stuff to the magazine I found yesterday.