Fujiwara no Kiyosuke

This picture of Fujiwara no Kiyosuke shows one of the 'saddest' of the 'Hyakunin Isshu' poets. I suppose that Shunsho was just trying to create an image that matched the mood of the poem.

Kiyosuke lived until the age of 74, so perhaps he did come to feel that those 'griefs' were indeed inconsequential.

Do you collectors have a moment of anticipation each month when you finally receive my package from the mailman, and then open it wondering, 'What kind of picture will it be this time?' I have such a moment each month; but in the package that I receive with suspense is not a woodblock print, but a stack of fresh cherry blocks. Sometimes, if the number of colours in the projected print is low, I order only two pieces of cherry wood, and the package is quite small. If the print is to be more elaborate though, and will have many colours, of course I need more blocks, and the package becomes quite heavy.

The suspense comes as I open the package and slide out the stack of blocks, each one carefully wrapped in newsprint. A great deal of the pleasure and/or anguish that I will feel over the coming few weeks depends on what I find. There are always two kinds of blocks in the package. For the 'key' block, on which I will carve the outlines of the print, the lettering, and the delicate hairlines (all printed in black sumi), it is best that the wood be dense, heavy and hard. For the 'colour' blocks a lighter and less dense wood is preferable; it is more important that these blocks have smooth grain, free of knots.

I never get what I want. Now don't misunderstand, and don't get angry at Shimano-san, the man who prepares these woodblocks for me. What I mean to say is that the wood never completely matches these ideal conditions. Trees are not 'manufactured' to my specifications. As they grow in the forest, they bend this way and that, add branches here and there, and absorb water or not as the climate and their surroundings dictate. When Shimano-san sorts through his stock of boards, he tries as best he can to find and prepare pieces that will suit my requirements. Most of the blocks he sends me are quite serviceable, sometimes they are absolutely magnificent, and then sometimes ...

When I opened the package containing this month's key block, I found that it was one of the heaviest and hardest blocks I had ever seen. When I started carving it, I found that the wood was like iron, and the tip of my blade broke off time and time again. I remember having a block like this once before, back in the early days of this project, and also remember well the cursing and complaining I did when struggling with it. But I am a lot older now, and a little bit wiser. It's no use cursing a piece of wood or a tool - if anything, they just respond by becoming even more antagonistic. It is I who must adapt, who must learn to relieve the pressure on the knife just 'so' when going round a tight curve, who must just shrug and turn again to the rough 'arato' stone when the knife breaks not even one minute after the previous sharpening ...

Although I don't think that you the collector can tell just by looking at this print that it was carved on such a difficult block, I will certainly never forget it. I will soon be receiving the blocks for the next print, and am eagerly waiting to see what they are like. It is in the nature of my world that things vary like this. This is not a 'factory', where woodblocks, sheets of paper, and finished prints come off assembly lines one-by-one, all identical. There are occasional surprises. And that, I guess, is one of the main reasons why I am enjoying this work - even as I reach for the sharpening stone yet one more time ...

December 1996