[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking

Baren Digest              Sunday, 7 December 1997      Volume 01 : Number 008

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From: David Bull <davebull@asahi-net.email.ne.jp>
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 1997 22:14:34 +0900
Subject: [Baren 39] Visit to a Printer ...

In [Baren 32]  I mentioned:

> I have an appointment to visit one of
> the older printers this coming Saturday afternoon.  I've met him any
> number of times at meetings of the 'Tokyo Traditional Woodblock
> Printmakers'  Association', but I've never had a chance to spend time
> chatting, and this is the first time I've been to his home.   I've of
> course got the usual long list of questions ...

I'm just back from the visit ...   Would it be of any interest to forum
members if I 'report' a little bit about it?

***

This visit wasn't completely a 'natural' visit; it was organized by NHK
as part of the filming they are doing here this week; that started
Tuesday morning, and this Saturday afternoon visit was the last of it.
(Broadcast of the resulting documentary will be in early January, if
anyone has a receiver that will reach this far!)  So we weren't
completely able to sit and relax, chatting about this and that, because
the producer kept butting in to get us to repeat things while they
rearranged the cameras, etc.   But even with the interruptions it was a
useful and informative session.

He is about 60 or so I guess, and works in a small workroom that is
actually one room of a small apartment that he rents for the purpose.
An 'apprentice' is also there, I'd say about 35 years old or so; I
wasn't able to figure out if this was his real son or just somebody he
had taken on.  I was surprised to find the two of them working at a
fairly high bench, sitting on roll-around stools.  No more of this
cross-legged sitting on the tatami stuff ...  I asked about this, but he
said that sitting on the floor was just too hard on the body.  (Out of
five printers whose rooms I have visited now, this makes four who work
standing up, and only one who remains sitting down.)

Another surprise was that they were not using natural light, but
standard desk-type fluorescent units.  When I asked him about how he
could possibly mix colours properly under such lighting, he just
shrugged ... 'It's OK ...'

Various woodblocks were scattered around the place, stacked on shelves
or leaning against the wall, and again I was surprised at what I saw.
Plywood, plywood and more plywood.  And I don't mean the new
cherry-faced plywood-core blocks, but just cheap birch ply (they call it
'shina' here).  I asked about this, a bit hesitantly, and he pulled some
of them over to show me.  It was an image of a buddhist statue of some
kind.

It turns out that he had carved it himself, and for a while the
conversation went that way as he explained that work from print
publishers just wasn't coming in in enough quantity to support them any
more.  And as a printer isn't much use without any blocks to print, he
was doing this to try and scare up enough work to keep the two of them
busy.

The job that they were printing today was pulling impressions off some
'hundred' year old blocks from a local temple.  These were covered with
carvings of sutras or whatever, and the temple wanted to make prayer
books from them.  The apprentice was printing the date on the sheets
that were to become the last page of the books, and when I looked
closer, I got another surprise.  As the date of course had to be this
year, not the original date of the other blocks, they had had to prepare
a new block for this portion.  Cherry?  No.   Birch ply?  No.   Plastic.

I'd heard about these plastic blocks before, but this was the first time
to see them.  They had taken a brush drawing of the calligraphy to some
kind of processing company, and in return had received a
photo-mechanically produced plastic 'block'; just a thin strip of some
kind of hard plastic with the lettering raised up above the surface.  As
this is completely insoluble, they can't use normal pigments, but were
using printer's ink, applied with a roller.  The paper (dry) was placed
on top, and then printed as usual with a baren.

Plastic blocks - oily inks - plywood - western desks ... is this the
kind of stuff you expected to hear in a report about a visit to one of
the last 20 traditional printers left in Tokyo?  (That figure of 20 is
his estimate; he thought perhaps four or five carvers were still
working.)  I must say that I too was a bit let down with the whole
feeling of the place.  Don't misunderstand - I'm sure he is a fine
craftsman, and although I didn't get to see any of his work while we
were there, I have heard good things about him from other members of the
Association.  But I sure didn't see much that I'd like to emulate ...

Actually, that's not true.  At one point I pulled out one of my barens
to ask him something, and in response he pulled over an aluminum camera
case about 50cm by 25 by 25.  He opened it and I went completely green
when I looked inside ... it was full full full of barens.  Heavy ones,
light ones, thin ones, thick ones, wide ones, small ones ...   There
were at least 20 of them in there ...  Some were relatively new, others
had been handed down to him from his 'oyakatta'.  It was a magnificent
collection, but when I asked him how often he actually used all of
these, he admitted that a lot of them were for very specialized work,
and didn't really get a lot of use.  But when they were needed - there
they were.

One part of the visit that _was_ very useful to me was the discussion
about brush softening.  I've been having a lot of trouble with this.
I've seen printers work their brushes on sharkskin any number of times,
and got my own skin many years ago.  But my brushes never seem to become
as soft as theirs do, even when I spend hours working them over.  It's
really been quite a frustration.  The horsehair must be good and stiff,
or the pigments don't get spread evenly, but if the tips of the hairs
are too hard, it leaves streaks in the print, and the paste tends to
cling to the edges of lines and delicately carved spots, spoiling the
'sharpness' of the image.  Rubbing the brushes over sharkskin gives the
tips all 'split ends', and the brush thus feels very soft, even though
the stiff hairs give it lots of 'body'.

But mine just wouldn't become soft.  So I took a few with me today, and
watched as he gave one of them the 'once-over' on his skin.  It took
only about five minutes, and I was amazed to find that it became soft
soft soft.  When I inspected the skin, I realized that it had quite a
different texture from the one I have.  The individual 'teeth' on my
skin are quite large and sharp, but those on his are smaller and closer
together.  It seems to make all the difference.  So it seems that I'll
be heading off to the fish market at 'Tsukiji' one morning soon, in
search of a new sharkskin ...

I'm not sure what impression to leave you with about this man and his
work.  It certainly does seem that the traditional printmaking scene is
undergoing major changes.  This is not the first printer I've met who
has taken up carving to try and ensure a regular supply of work, and
perhaps these decades are seeing the final breakdown of the system of
complete separation between the carving and printing crafts.  If that is
the case, then the level of carving skills are without question going to
take a major nosedive.  But with photographic and laser block carving
getting 'better' all the time, perhaps that won't matter so much ...

Anyway, that's a snapshot of one visit to one printer on one afternoon
in Tokyo in 1997 ...   Typical?  I don't know.  We'll see after some more
visits ...

Dave Bull

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From: Ray Esposito <brassring@brassring.org>
Date: Sat, 06 Dec 1997 09:57:31 -0500
Subject: [Baren 40] Re: Visit to a Printer ...

At 10:14 PM 12/6/97 +0900, you wrote:
>I'm just back from the visit ...   Would it be of any interest to forum
>members if I 'report' a little bit about it?

Great story.  Thanks for sharing it.
Ray Esposito
President/Founder
The Brass Ring Society
500 Macaw Lane, No. 5
Fern Park, Florida  32730
e-mail:      brassring@brassring.org
WEB SITE:    http://www.brassring.org/brassring

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End of Baren Digest V1 #8
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