Written on January 20, 1992 [Permalink]

January 18

The last few days have been busy with preparations for the exhibition. Mounted the descriptive blurbs for each print, and ran off 150 postcards for sending to last year's attendees. Ashida-san has taken them, and will write the address for me (most of the people coming last year really scribbled their address down, and there's no way I can read most of them.) Carved the 'Hyaku-nin Isshu' label for the front of next year's blue cases, and made some new address labels for the inside (with the 'Hamura City' address).

A letter arrived from Yamaguchi-san today with a bill for a couple of hundred sheets of paper. This is none too soon, as it's been about four months since they sent any, and I'm half-way through my last package. The deal was supposed to be 200 sheets per month, but they've never even come close. I can't complain. They work seven days a week as it is, and I know they've got lots of people yelling for paper all the time. I sure hope he doesn't get sick!

I was worrying the other day about the silence from the local newspaper offices... Today a call came from a new guy working for the local Yomiuri. He came over right away, did an interview and took some pictures. So at least one of them will be covering it.

I also got a call from Ms. Matsushita, the lady who did the Mainichi interview last week. She asked if there had been any reaction to the column (how could there be, with no phone number?), and seemed surprised that I hadn't heard from anybody. She wanted to know if I was free sometime next week to do a TV interview promoting the exhibition. I suppose it's a tie-in with the Mainichi TV channel. They'll be coming next Wednesday for a few hours.

Spoke at length to Ishikawa-san, the customer in Utsunomiya with a gallery business. I don't remember if I talked about this before, but we've been wrestling back and forth with the idea of him buying the prints wholesale to sell one by one in his gallery, with me resisting at every step, and him repeatedly requesting various twists on the theme each time. This time, I didn't really understand what he had in mind, but it involved sending 29 prints for some kind of display (all except the last one, for some reason). He didn't want folders or cases. I managed to make it clear that I absolutely don't want to sell one by one, and as he seemed to understand, I agreed to send the prints. I don't know what he is planning to do with them...

January 19

Most of the day with the kids (Sunday), out skating and stuff, but got seven of the prints framed and ready. I'm out of frames, and if the next order doesn't come from Sekaido in time, I'll have to 'borrow' a few from the pile of framed back numbers, and replace them later.

January 20

Call from the people doing Wednesday's TV thing, wanting to know if they can shoot the exhibition 'set-up' next week. Fine by me, but suggested that they talk to Kuwata-san at Gallery Mon. I don't imagine she'll complain. Takanashi-san called from Osaka NHK to thank me for the print I sent after the program last week. I'm the one to thank him, for not putting me on the spot with difficult questions during the program!

Michael Lynch called up to sign on for another year. Slowly but surely, they're coming in ...

The order of frames came from Sekaido, much earlier than I had expected. Unfortunately, they didn't include any mats, so I'll have to chase down there later on in the week and pick them up. More time wasted ...

Takayoshi returned the pile of videos of my TV appearances, along with a couple of rolls of film. I had asked him to shoot a few stills from each one, for use in the P/R folder during the exhibition. I've been getting it 'neatened up' for the show. It's now 40 pages long! (If only I had even one customer from every story or show!)