Written on December 31, 1990 [Permalink]

December 30

So how did it go? Great! It was good fun seeing all the old gang again. Nothing in Vancouver seems to have changed very much, and it's hard to believe we'd been away nearly five years.

As for the printmaking, the whole thing was a washout. The LA show was fun to do, and good experience at doing demonstrations, but as I had pretty much expected, was a total zero for business. Seki-san sold quite a bit, although well below last year, but I did nothing. It was interesting that the visitors (mostly second or third generation Japanese Americans, who spoke little or no Japanese) generally preferred watching the 'authentic' printer, rather than the one who could communicate with them. The travel box worked out very well, surviving all but the last leg of the trip completely intact. Someone must have really chucked it around on the way back to Japan, as the inner shelf section separated from its foundation, and will have to be repaired, but overall, the thing worked just fine.

The Vancouver show, which I had thought might turn out much better (with no competition from Seki-san), was just as much of a bust. The gallery owner and I had obviously had different ideas about what kind of event to put together. I had assumed that she would be doing some advertising to try and get a pre-Xmas crowd in, but she had actually been considering the whole thing as just a kind of Xmas party for her regular furniture customers. It was a Friday evening wine and cheese party for a dozen people, and on the Saturday I was given a space at the back of her shop, and simply sat there printing while she sold furniture all day. Total sales: two prints.

I think from now on that if I get involved with any more demonstrations it won't be with sales in mind. I like doing them, and talking about the work, but I don't like trying to mix in the sales aspect (it doesn't seem to work anyway!).

All in all we had a fantastic holiday: skiing, skating, swimming, seeing old friends, travelling Well worth the million yen it all cost.

When we got back there were three letters asking about information on the prints, from people who had read Jean Pearce's column of Nov. 29, where (unknown to me) she had given us another boost. We had left the answering machine on with a message (in Japanese) telling about our plans, but there were no messages. I sent information packages.

This past week has mostly been taken up with carving and printing the New Year's card (135 copies!). Ashida-san has also been in to tie up the loose ends of her work. She has made up a couple of hundred extra folders that I can use to get started on next year's stuff, and this may really help, especially if we have trouble finding a new worker. Looking back over her year's hours and payments, I noticed that from July to September she worked half the number of hours that she did from February to June, and actually did more work. She really became an expert folder maker!

She has left the year's work in beautiful condition: there's a separate box for each month with 60 packed prints inside, along with another large box with some extras. There's a good list of all inventory, including packed prints, loose prints, as well as the extra folders. The thought of having to do this myself next year ...

December 31

Wrapped up the year-end books. Sales were triple last year, coming in at 3,784,270. Expenses were double, at 2,894,201 yen, resulting in a profit of about a million yen. In addition to this there are now just short of 1,000 prints in stock (in folders, ready to go). We are owed 330,000 yen, have 487,000 cash on hand, and owe a measly 20,000. There are 25 current subscribers, of whom 11 have already asked to continue next year. There are also three people signed up to start next year.

The past year also saw two TV shows, one magazine article, five newspaper articles, and a bunch of miscellaneous newspaper mentions (exhibition, etc.).

English classes will resume in another week ...