Written on March 16, 1992 [Permalink]

March 15

Speaking to Michiyo on the phone this morning, and she's making noises again about moving up to Okunono - the old family homestead in the mountains above the village where she grew up - to build a house and settle. We're planning to go and stay there this summer, but without a road up to the farm it's impossible to even consider living permanently up there. And what about her school ...? It's funny talking to her sometimes, to see how confused she still is about what she wants to do with herself - go to school, be a mother, be a doctor, etc. etc. I guess I used to be like that - just wandering around thinking about doing this and that, but I suppose that since this project started I've really found a focus. There's still lots of things I'd like to do, but there's no way I'm going to quit this one now. Anything else will just have to wait ... But who knows, maybe by this time next year, we'll have talked the local city office into building a road, and I'll be writing this up in the mountains ...

March 16

Visit today from Ned Herperger to print some of his new blocks. I have mixed feeling about this. Of course I encouraged him to get busy and try something, so I can't refuse to help him now, but the time it takes up! He was here for over four hours, and that's four hours of prime carving time gone ...

He hadn't even tried making a print from the blocks, but simply brought them around and expected me to 'design' a colour scheme. I would feel better if he had tried first, and got some experience under his belt. The colour blocks were way, way too shallow, and I had to spend most of an hour chiselling them all down before we could print anything. If he had tried printing, he would have found out, and would have done that himself. Actually though, it was kind of interesting. I put on some reasonable colours, included a few bokashi impressions to make it look a bit more 'finished' and less simplistic, and it came out quite nicely. I also carved a quick 'nezumi-ban' like I read about in the old Yoshida book, and that also worked well. All in all, it was just as much good training for me as for him ...

A copy of 'Insatsu Joho' came in the mail. Back during the exhibition, the 'reporter' had come to take pictures etc. for this story. It's a trade journal for the printing industry, and I guess I fit that description too ... It's pretty poorly produced, with no attempt at any kind of attractive layout, and one of the pictures is even reversed. There's a good listing of companies involved in graphics and reproduction included though, and maybe I can find somebody who can do a good job of the hanshita reproduction ...