Written on June 14, 1991 [Permalink]

June 11

Mailed the newsletters, a 14,000 yen bill at the Post Office. Ouch! (Of course that doesn't include the 50,000 it costs to print them). Expensive PR, but I think, effective.

Carved away at the poem, and finished it in the evening. Now just the border lines ....

June 12

Finished the border lines, not without a lot of hassles with the knife. All during the last couple of prints, I've fallen into a frustrating routine where I sharpen the knife, come back to the block, start to cut, and then break the blade with the first stroke. I thought that perhaps I had a bad blade, so I changed it for another one from the batch Usui-san gave me. No difference. I've been trying endless variations on the blade angles, trying to find one that will help the blade last at least a few minutes longer. I don't know if I should think about this after saying so many good things about Usui-san's blades, but are they perhaps too fragile? I never seemed to have these problems in the first year of this project. Next time I'm in Tokyo, I'll stop off at Shimizu and pick up a few of their blades for comparison. Got to do something, as it's getting ridiculous. I end up trying to carve all the time with a broken tip ....

Printed the transfer sheets and pasted them down. Six colours on two pieces of wood.

June 13

Started carving the colour blocks, and got most of the 'to' work done. Moistened six sheets for sample printing.

June 14

When I got back from the pool this morning, Shintani-san was waiting for me, with a glum look on her face. She had just brought over 50 finished folders for this month's print, and had dropped them on the way over. One corner is hopelessly smashed, and they'll all have to be thrown away. Materials and time - about 30,000 yen. She mumbled about quitting, etc., but I think we got her calmed down. We have enough from Ashida-san to get the print mailed next week (they're doing 60 each, each month), and Shintani-san can take these back, cut off the name labels, and make some more when she has time. She tried to refuse her pay packet for May, which was waiting for her today, but we weren't having any of that ...

Finished the colour blocks, and printed the sumi on the six sample sheets. Terrible. Paper too wet - too dry, I don't know. Ink too thick - too weak, I don't know. Baren skin brand new - and totally disfunctional. I see by this journal that it was May 17th since I did any real printing ... I swear, if I can get rid of these English classes, I'm going to do a print run every week, either the current print or a back number. Perhaps the best way will be to make it a scheduled routine, Sunday night - paper wet, Monday - sumi, Tuesday - colours. I'm sure if Matsuzaki-san realized that I only printed on three or four days a month, he'd just laugh and tell me to give it up!