Written on March 30, 1991 [Permalink]

March 27

Another two week gap without updating this book..... Sanuki is printed and shipped (on the 19th, not really very late), and she looks great, perhaps the best one so far. I didn't make any real attempt to follow the colours of the original, beyond the basic concept of 'red' bottom and 'yellow' top, end I even changed those two. Before starting the printing run, I made a bunch of sample copies on cheaper paper, trying a bunch of different approaches to the colour selection. I knew that they were no good even as I was doing them, but at least it gave me something to start with. I did them one at a time, and made changes as I went, until I arrived at the final version. My colours are definitely getting better. The printing is also improving. I'm using much less water on the brush, trying instead to stick with just the moisture that is in the pigment, and this has reduced the problems.

The sumi was a bit of a problem this time. I had pretty well finished off the last batch that Michiyo had mixed last year sometime, so last week she ground up some more (it's been soaking for months). I used it for this print, and had quite a few problems with black lumps lodging themselves in corners on the block and causing blotches. I guess she either didn't grind it enough or didn't strain it very well. It was a touchy situation for a while when I had to tell her about it, but the next day she started to talk to me again, took back the stuff, and restrained it. Much better.

The woodblocks from Shimano san had showed up a couple of days after I finished the sumi block, so there was no real delay on that account. He also sent the two blocks that I need for the next print - Ki no Tomonori [3-3], and that one is now pasted down and a token bit of carving under way.

Most of the time this week has been taken up with the Mainichi articles, which I sent off yesterday (six of them), along with photographs and illustrations. I think they're pretty good, but it's very difficult for me to gauge how easily a person with no knowledge of printmaking will be able to follow the instructions. I would have liked to have had somebody go over them and give me some feedback on unclear passages, but I'll have to hope the editors will do this. I wanted to include some information on sources of supply, and didn't want to have the readers trucking all over town here and there, or having to lay out a pile of money, so I checked out a few art supply places in Tokyo. I chose Ito-ya in the Ginza as the 'one-stop' shop for them, and arranged for a list of materials needed for the project to be kept at their information desk. The columns will refer people who want to try printmaking to head down there. I bought a set of materials myself, so that I could make sure the stuff was actually useful, and made a sample print (some notepaper) using it. I had to do this anyway, in order to get some photographs to accompany the articles. It was no fun using the 'junk' knives, but at least it gave me a better perspective on what a beginner would face using them. The columns should start running in early April, on Mondays. I don't really expect that it will help out the hyaku-nin project very much, but who knows ....

I just got back from dropping the Mainichi package off at the post office, when a phone call came in from a lady in the 'Mama Chorus'. I had forgotten that I had promised them months ago to help with a poster for their upcoming concert .... She dropped round with the information, and it seems that I am going to make 100 copies of a woodblock printed poster for their July concert (poster to be ready by the beginning of June). I certainly don't have the time for this, but it should be an interesting challenge. I've never tried printing on such large paper, and I suppose it's time I got some experience at a different kind of carving and printing work.

So what else has gone on during the past couple of weeks. Nothing much. Shintani-san is settling in on the folder making, still getting quite a bit of help from Ashida-san, who did all the shipping work for Sanuki by herself (more than 45 packages in one day, from inserting the prints in the folders, right to the final post office labelling). Yes, more than 45 packages - that's 38 prints going out to paying customers (seven or eight of those are back numbers), and eight freebies. That puts our monthly income from printmaking at about 380,000 yen now. Unfortunately it is not building up in the bank, due to the almost complete fade-out of English income (down to about 90,000 monthly). Printmaking is now making a significant contribution to our living expenses (translation rarely adds more than 100,000), and I guess as of the last couple of months, I am now a 'printmaker' in the 'making a living' sense of the term. Congratulations! The English income might have almost disappeared, but the classes haven't. There are only 17 students left, but still 10 classes per week! Actually, if the print customer list doesn't grow a bit more by September, when Michiyo takes off for school in Canada and the translation income disappears, it's going to be touch and go for the rent ...

I've saved the best for the last. Got a reply from Mr. Michener! He wrote a short friendly letter expressing his pleasure at seeing the prints and hearing about the project. He was 'polite' about the quality of the prints, and offered that 'if a statement from me' would help in the project, he would be willing to comply. I don't think that there's anything he could do, and I don't think that I would ask anyway, but it's certainly nice to feel the support. I really hadn't expected any kind of answer from him, but now that I know he's aware of the work, and his influence on it, I feel as though I have discharged a bit of a debt to him. (Also funny to see that his secretary typed the wrong year on his letter, even though he himself got it correct in the body ...)