Saigyo Hoshi

This month's poet is one of the most-loved members of the Hyakunin Isshu poets - Saigyo Hoshi. I read a wonderful 'capsule biography' of him recently: 'In youth a much-praised army captain, but at twenty-three fed up with pointless slaughter, he turned monk, built himself huts in several places. He became a great hiker, carried a backpack, blazed his path through forests by breaking a twig or branch here and there but often would next time try a different route just for fun. Yet even he, if he remembered too much, could be shaken ...'

During the process of making a woodblock print, there are many chances for things to go wrong; although it is an extremely simple technology, everything has to be exactly 'in place' for the results to be satisfactory. In the early days of this long series, I struggled with many aspects of the work - how much water should be in the paper, how much paste to put on the blocks, how hard to rub with the baren, etc. The list was endless ... If the colour was a bit speckled, was this because of too much water, too little paste, too little pressure? There were so many different variables affecting the appearance of the finished print that I had no idea how to control them all.

I especially had trouble with black. Many of Shunsho's prints were made with black kimono, and in the days when I was still copying the originals closely, I had to wrestle with these wide expanses of black. I had a terrible time; printing smooth and deep black is the single most difficult job that a printer can undertake. When I now take out the folders of those prints from eight and nine years ago, and see the rough and uneven black printing, I am embarrassed to look at them.

But as the years have gone by, I have gradually developed an understanding of how to balance and control all the different variables. I have learned that one of the keys to producing smooth black colour is to move the baren in very small, very tight circles, and to maintain firm pressure. Rubbing carelessly will result in a poor impression. The black on this month's print is certainly not perfect, but maybe I'm not doing so badly ...

I'm certainly not an expert printer yet, but at least it is no longer a major struggle to produce each print. During the printing process, as certain things start to change - perhaps the paper becomes a bit too dry - I automatically feel this with my fingers and simply add more water to the stack. My fingers now know what the paper should feel like. But I'm recently finding a funny thing - even though I am gradually getting more and more experienced, printmaking isn't really becoming any easier. For each aspect of this work that I finally feel I have got a good grasp - something comes up that I just hadn't noticed before. There is always something new to learn. I suppose that this will be an endless process, and I will never be able to say that I have learned 'everything' about printmaking.

And it seems also that as I get older, some aspects of the work are becoming more difficult; for example I have recently been having trouble with hairs appearing on the surface of the woodblock, where they become mixed in with the pigment and then leave lines in the print. I take good care of my brushes, and they don't shed much hair, so where are these fine brown hairs coming from, and why should this problem seem to be getting worse now ...?

I suppose though, that when enough time has passed, this difficulty too will gradually disappear ...

May 1998

Quotation and poem translation: Tom Galt, 1982