Written on January 16, 1992 [Permalink]

January 15

Each of the last two years of this journal has started off with a 'Page One' colour picture from one of the local newspapers. I thought that this year was going to break that 'tradition', but I was awakened this morning about seven by a phone call from Ms. Matsushita of the Mainichi Shimbun, telling me that the story she had written after our interview a couple of days ago was in this morning's paper - not the local page, but the national editions, in colour. Of course I scooted down to the nearest train station right away to pick up a copy so I'd know what was in there when people started to phone - but I needn't have bothered. More than 10,000,000 copies out there, and no phone number in the story! She included really 'useful' stuff: Shunsho's birth and death dates (who cares?), the name of the original book (spelled wrong), the size of each hanga (they can see the picture!) ... but no phone number, and no mention of the exhibition. And I guess that being on the front page means that there won't be any mention of the gallery show in the local listings ... It could have been a fantastic break. We'll just have to wait and see if it leads to some other kind of connection...

The reason she was out here was my January P/R flyer. I used the panorama photo taken in November, prepared a blurb about the exhibition, and sent it to all the newspapers, both local and head office. But she had also heard about my activities through her father, who was our instructor at the local sports center, where I had been taking some very casual 'kyudo' (archery) lessons for the past few months.

There have been three responses to the flyer so far, the Mainichi interview on Sunday afternoon, the Japan Times Weekly the same evening (by telephone), and the head office of Sankei Shinbun yesterday. This last one will apparently also be national coverage, in colour, although probably not 'front page'. The Japan Times Weekly will be a half-page story in next week's issue. The day before yesterday was yet another interview/photo session, this time with a magazine - 'Gaten'. This one is kind of strange. The magazine is a job search publication, aimed at 20-year olds, who are not likely to have much interest in what I do. When I asked the interviewer about this, he explained that the angle was not the products of my work, the prints, but the 'gambatte' aspect - somebody taking on a ten-year project.

All of this is very neat, but I'm starting to get a bit nervous about the exhibition. So far I'm not aware of any coverage of the event. Last year I got a good bunch of stories, mostly in the Tama area, and the turnout was fine. This year? Perhaps what is happening is that the local papers are mentioning it, but have no need to call me before they write the stuff, as they are now quite familiar with what I'm doing. I sure hope so! We'll find out in a couple of weeks.

The other big P/R event worth mentioning is the NHK special program last Saturday. It turned out that what they had in mind was not a feature on my printmaking work, but a position as a guest member of a panel discussing the poetry. There were four of us, a Waseda University professor, an author of books on Hyaku-nin Isshu, a woman who had written a 'manga' Hyakunin Isshu, and yours truly. The program was two hours long, and was a live broadcast from the Omi Shrine in Otsu, where the annual 'Karuta Queen' competition was taking place - the action switched back and forth between the competition floor and the room where us 'commentators' were sitting. It was of course all in Japanese, and I guess overall it went off pretty well. I didn't contribute an awful lot to anybody's understanding of the poetry, but didn't fall on my face either. The whole thing was actually kind of like a holiday, green car tickets on the Shinkansen, accomodations at a super-deluxe hotel, and no kids (they stayed with the Suzukis). They asked for my bank account number, and I guess there'll be a little present coming to help with the rent...

I had time after everthing was over before my train, and hunted up Aoyama san's workshop in Kyoto. I've got to find some way of getting ahead of Shimano-san on the woodblocks. Living on the edge like I did over the last half of last year, being delayed every month because of not having a block to work on, is not doing anything for my peace of mind. But ... there isn't going to be any solution here. Aoyama-san was out (at their shinnenkai), but his wife made it quite clear that there was no chance of getting any blocks from them, either in finished form, or raw lumber. The problem didn't seem to be working time, but rather lack of material. His workshop is jammed floor to ceiling with small pieces of cherry wood (they use a 'ma-zakura' from Kyushu exclusively, she said), all neatly cut and planed, but she said they can't get enough wide boards for their own customers, let alone for me. It's what I had expected, but there was no harm trying ...

That visit took only about five minutes, so I headed up to where I remembered an old bookstore that used to have woodblock prints and stuff. I found it with no problem, and guess what was in the window - Shunsho's book (later edition)! It's in pretty good condition, but has two big problems. They want 450,000, which is out of the question for me (about double what I could scrape together), and there is also oxidization of the white colour that was printed on the faces. I wouldn't really care if I was just 'collecting', but this makes the carved lines of the face almost invisible, and wouldn't help me at all for my own work. Had an interesting talk with the two brothers who run the place. I thought maybe we could swing a swap deal, but they're not particularly interested in my stuff, (why should they be, with a shop full of woodblock prints?) and it doesn't seem likely that anything will come together. They did mention that it's been sitting there for a few years, though ...

Started in on the exhibition preparation, typing out the blurbs that will be displayed with the prints, and buying some plastic boards for displaying them. I also ordered a few more frames to bring my stock up to 10, and picked up another daruma doll. I'll be displaying all 30 prints, 10 in frames, and 20 on the zig-zag 'mini-byobu' displays. The demonstration print this year will be Sanuki.

Also started the hanshita preparation for this year's set. I got the enlarged photos late last year, and now made the double layer paper for the actual hanshitas. I'm going to spend some time trying to find a better copy machine than the one in the convenience store next door, as they are not keeping it in very good condition recently. Perhaps a professional reproduction company downtown somewhere.

As far as the customer list goes, it's still too early to tell what it's going to look like this year. Only 15 have officially signed on for another year so far, another eight or so are pretty sure to do so, and as for the rest ... I really don't have any idea. There have been three outright cancellations already (Matsuuchi, Otake, and Yamamoto). If we don't have a good exhibition, with a bunch of new subscribers and maybe even a few outright set sales, I'm going to be in real trouble for paying the rent. There's no print going out this month, and the shipment of cases from Kogado will be arriving soon, along with a fat package from Yamaguchi san.

I guess the last bit of news tonight can be the best - a package of three beautiful blocks arrived from Shimano-san today, so I can get started on the next print as soon as I get the hanshita ready. An auspicious beginning to the year ...