Written on June 5, 1992 [Permalink]

June 1

The second run of Doin Hoshi [4-4] went well over the weekend, and I now have a stack of 120 good copies sitting on my desk. This is the first time I have ever had a pile like this all together, as Ashida-san usually gets the first batch shipped before I get the second one done. It looks great. Just like a 'real' printer!

Spent Sunday on the 'Hyakunin Issho' paste-up, and tried to get a bit of different appearance this time with the illustration layout. I'm also considering enlarging the size of the type in the English section, as I've noticed recently that it's not so easy to read ... Not sure how to do this, as I originally chose the type sizes to give a balance between J and E sections, and if I increase them, the space for text will substantially decrease.

Today was a jam-packed productive day. Interview and photos in the morning with Maeda-san from the Shukan Yomiuri magazine. This should also be an interesting one. Unfortunately the story is not just about me, but will include a bunch of other 'gaijin studying Japanese stuff'. It's a very wide circulation magazine though, so there could well be something develop from it.

After that, took the newsletter stuff to the printer, and then headed downtown to Shimano-san's place. I wanted to take him the newest print, and talk about the next blocks. I'm embarrassed about the mix-up last month, and wanted to make sure there was no residual bad feeling. (I had phoned him on a Saturday, and asked for blocks 'rai-shu', thinking of the Monday one week later. He assumed I meant the day-after-tomorrow Monday, and worked over Sunday to get them done for me.)

He's OK, and his wife suggested that I use dates instead of days from now on ... Ended up sitting and chatting with the three of them (his daughter, too) for a couple of hours while he worked. I also asked about the possibility of getting an introduction to his retired 'oyakatta' for a possible interview for the newsletter. Seems like it would be no problem, and all I have to do is ask when I'm ready.

When I left, I started to walk towards Ueno station, with the idea of heading down towards Akihabara to find a colour copy shop, but didn't get that far. Just a couple of blocks away from Shimano-san's place saw a sign advertising colour copies, went in to see what their stuff was like, and hit the jackpot. Way, way better than the copies I got a while ago in Tachikawa. These guys keep their machine in tip-top condition, and the resulting copy is pretty much indistinguishable from the photograph. Even the colours are absolutely identical. There's no way I'm going to get a better hanshita than this until I'm able to get a better photo somehow ... And the copies are only 500 yen each. I got the hanshita made for each of the next two prints, and will be back later for more. (It's especially convenient being so near to Kaneko and Shimano).

June 5

Finally this week, got the second batch of Akazome Emon [3-8] printed, a mere eight months after the first one ... I hadn't made any notes about the colours back last October, and ended up with slightly altered tones for both the kimono and hakama. Had a bit of problem with registration. The colour block has shrunk quite extensively, especially lengthwise. This is the first time I've ever seen distortion in that direction. I had to recut the kento by a good three millimeters, and it was possible to get the colours to fit well in the lines only because the areas involved were so small. If this had been a full-width design, I would have been in big trouble. This makes me nervous about all those other blocks sitting in my cupboard. When I try and print them again in the future, am I going to have a lot of problems with registration like this? (I also wonder if the wood I'm getting from Shimano-san has been seasoned long enough. It would be kind of nice to be in a position to let each block sit in the workshop here for a couple of months to get acclimatized before I started working on it ...)

A Mrs. Yamada came over to see the prints. She's one of the ladies in the Hyakunin Isshu practice group at the Kominkan. She wanted to buy just a couple, but after I explained the way we do things, she signed on for the current set ... That brings us to 40 people, 46 prints each month. Actually, as Mr. Akin 'catches up' with this next print and will only get one each time from now on, it's going to slip back to 40 people, 45 prints. Plus one - minus one.

Had a bit of a 'holiday' on Wednesday. Yamashita-san phoned the evening before and asked me to drive out to Kawagoe with him, to see an exhibition of old paintings of the 36 Poets that was on at the City Museum there. It was a good day (especially the lunch!), and an enjoyable museum ... Next Tuesday I'm supposed to drop by his place for lunch. He wants to introduce me and my work to somebody ...

Also spent a couple of hours the other day and tried to get the work schedule organized for the rest of the year. With missing a month back in March, it's now quite confused as to when I should be sending each print, and ordering the wood, etc. Also, if I want to go to the country for August, I'll have to have that month's print finished early, and left for Ashida-san to ship while we're away. It turns out that I've only got six weeks left to finish the next two prints ...