Written on October 31, 1992 [Permalink]

October 22

Finished the carving on the kid's print. He looks OK, but I'm afraid there'll be a bit of trouble printing it. There's such a big open area in the middle (the belly area) that it's going to be hard keeping the kids from smashing in with the baren ...

Picked up the 200 copies of the photo, and started to get the first mailing batch ready. I'm sending to the monthly magazines this week, and then to the weeklies in late November. Newspapers will get theirs after the New Year ...

October 26

Ashida-san and Ishikawa-san were over Friday, and the three of us got the prints wrapped and shipped. This is going to be just in time, as the piggy bank is completely empty, and the bill pile is growing steadily (I still haven't even paid the washi bill from early September). The customers will get the package on Saturday, and if they get down to the Post Office in the next few days, we might make the rent payment at the end of the week ... If!

Spent Saturday working on the New Year's card. It's going to be a miniature scene of a Mt. Fuji dawn, with lots of bokashi overprintings. The first test printings were a joke, but I started to get the hang of it after a bit, and I think I'll be able to make a good one. I really haven't the slightest idea how to create these multiple colour overlays, but I've been studying the book of Hiroshi Yoshida prints, and will fumble around until I get something acceptable. Seki-san could really help with this, but I'm sure he's too busy, and I'd also like to give it a try alone ...

Today was all day at the hospital again. The X-rays last month had some vague shadows on the colon, so they had me take an endoscopic exam this time. It was fascinating, watching on the monitor while they pushed 150cm of the thing up my guts (They tried first with a one meter model, but couldn't get all the way and had to pull it out and start again with a longer one). Diagnosis? All clear, and no problems.

October 31

Had another batch of the CWAJ ladies here for printing. It's interesting, but certainly a test of my (poor) 'modern' style printmaking abilities. One of them had carved a scene of Mt. Fuji with snow-covered pine tree in the foreground and flaming sunset behind, and it would have been perfect for Seki-san to do. As it was, I came up with a basically good looking print, but not without quite a bit of fooling around. Anyway, the ladies are happy, and it's good experience for me ...

Had to make the month-end trip to the bank yesterday to make sure the rent was ready. As it turns out, only one of the customers has paid for the latest print in time, so I had to finally give in and borrow (rob) from Himi's postal saving account (money left by Michiyo's father when he died). It meant breaking up a term deposit, removing 250,000 yen, and re-investing the 500,000 balance (naturally at a lower interest rate). I used it to pay off Yamaguchi-san (two months late) and Shimano-san, and then put the rest into the bank to cover the rent and food co-op bill. I still have outstanding bills on the shelf for 150,000 (medical insurance, city taxes, part timers, wrapping supplies, etc). The total income for October was only 190,000. It's no good having forty-odd customers if I'm going to send the print so late that they can't pay in time. At least the delay should make things a bit easier at the end of the year ...

Had to choose between doing the second printing on Kii, or starting the next print - Fujiwara no Tadamichi [4-9]. This week is so mixed up with interruptions that I didn't want to get involved with printing, so prepared the hanshita, stuck it down, and got started. This one should be a breeze (except for the name!), and the figure is now almost finished.