Written on November 14, 1992 [Permalink]

November 6

Spent Sunday and Tuesday at the culture festival, helping a couple of hundred kids print their Totoro picture. It comes out OK, but I have to help them with each impression, or else they smash into the empty area in the middle and spoil it. This makes things go slowly, and the lineup started to look like Disneyland ...

The rest of the week has been steady carving, and as of tonight, the sumi-ban is all done except the clearing inside the poem. Ashida-san came over this afternoon and asked if the name labels were ready yet, and here I was thinking that I was way, way ahead ...!

The payments for the last print have been coming in steadily, and I got down and paid off all the outstanding bills yesterday. (But it'll be well into next year before I can pay back Himi-chan)

Got a note from Yamaguchi-san with the contact information for the kozo supplier that I asked her for recently. They're up in Tochigi-ken, just close enough for a one-day trip to get acquainted. Maybe it would be a good time to get up there when Michiyo is back here for her winter break. I'll give them a call sometime ...

Phoned Toda-san at Kogado and ordered the blue cases for next year. I asked for 120 this time rather than the usual 100. Delivery for the end of January. The current stock is nearly all gone, just nicely timed. He didn't mention any price increase. (The finances in January should be 'interesting': no print income, 400,000 more due to the gallery, 300,000 or so to Kogado, our usual household expenses, and Michiyo also probably looking for a bit of help for her second term ...

November 8

Wrapped up a pile of prints for the CWAJ ladies for sending off to Margaret Riley tomorrow. They're going to have a get-together in a couple of weeks to exchange their finished prints, and I'm also included. I'll be using the New Year card as my contribution, and will come home with 20 or so copies of their work. A great idea. In addition to this, they each want to buy one of my regular prints. They know about the 'set only' situation, but wanted to know if I would be flexible ... Would I be flexible?! This would pay a third of the January gallery rental!

November 14

The first batch are printed. I'm certainly not happy with the kimono colour. I had imagined the green as being a lot deeper, but when I tried a sample it just looked too dark, and I ended up using a paler shade. It's wimpy.

It was a nice relaxed week of work. I seem to be well on schedule, so took it easy, taking time off to visit the used book shop. I also got the hanshita ready for number 40, and ordered the large colour enlargements for next year's set.