Written on May 14, 1991 [Permalink]

May 11

Off to Tokyo, for a quick visit to Matsuzaki-san to take pictures for the next newsletter. The visit today was as enjoyable as the last one was brief. He didn't stop working when I arrived, but kept busy with what he was doing - trying to match some colours on a sample before starting actual printing work. This was very enlightening. The job is a simple one - 1,000 copies of a little card to be handed out at a shrine, showing a small flower. I watched him go through about 50 samples before he settled on a colour for the branch. I used four sheets to settle on my colours for this month's print. He's obviously just as serious about these little jobs as he is for 'real' work. There's nothing careless or casual about it at all. When they commission him to make some prints, they get all his skills!

I got to stay for lunch, and we had a good talk. He seemed to think that the idea about looking for tools might turn up something, although he personally didn't know of anything around. He seemed pleased about being the featured shokunin in the newsletter, and let me run around shooting freely. I've already got the article written, but will have to make some changes after watching his work on that sample today ...

After leaving, I spent time in the reading room at Arakawa library, getting addresses of possible targets for the upcoming P/R about the tool search. All the newspapers seem to have a 'Shitamachi' edition, and it would sure be nice to get some features in papers over there. When I got home, I prepared the mailing, and I'll send it off as soon as we get back from Aichi. The trip has come together, thanks to Kaoru-san's babysitting (one of our English students will stay overnight), and Michiyo and I are off tomorrow for a short trip to see David Stones and his wife Akiko.

May 13

So how was it? Great! I can't remember ever having a more pleasant visit with someone. Their house is wonderful, the result of years of work fixing and building by the two of them. There's no kids around, so the place is absolutely spotless. Everything is placed 'just so', and I felt a bit uncomfortable even moving a cushion to sit on it! His workroom is a dream, with separate areas for carving and printing, lots of storage, and a wall full of windows. She plied us with fabulous meals, and we felt more like guests in a deluxe hotel, than visitors in somebody's home.

There seems to be no problem between David and myself about establishing and silly kind of 'pecking order' or anything like that. He's been here twenty years, and has all the experience of building the house behind him, but I seem to have gotten the business side of the print thing together a bit better than he has, and we should turn out to be quite a good influence on each other.

When we got back, Michiyo went to the bookstore to start doing research on 'country life' house hunting, etc ..... Where will this lead?

May 14

Still no sign of the next blocks, so spend most of the afternoon carving the lettering on the poster. Got it done. Next step, printing ... and that should be interesting. The rest of this week is going to be full, but around next Monday or so, I'll have to get going on it.

Mailed the PR stuff to the downtown newspapers, sending to both the head offices, and the 'shitamachi page' office. I have high expectations for this one ....