[Baren]: The mailing list / discussion forum for woodblock printmaking Baren Digest Monday, 8 December 1997 Volume 01 : Number 009 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bill Mixon Date: Sun, 7 Dec 1997 15:40:21 -0500 Subject: [Baren 41] Re: Visit to a Printer ... Great story, Dave. Sobering too. Mirrors the situation with traditional Japanese hand papermaking. This used to be a "cottage industry" --- the materials and processes lent themselves well to that. (That's why the quality might have been so variable too.) The number of farm families (the typical "work unit" for papermaking) working at this numbered in the tens of thousands, early in this century. Now it's hundreds, if that, and dropping fast. Most of the "handmade" Oriental paper you can buy nowadays (at least Stateside) is actually factory-made, albeit by hand. (The label "hand-made" in this case means the mould was dipped into the vat of pulp by hand, and couched -- transferred from the mould to the stack of formed sheets -- by hand. All the other processes -- beating the pulp, pressing and drying the sheets -- were quite likely mechanised.) So the quality becomes a little more uniform, but the product loses much of its personality... One can sympathise with the printer's need to pay his bills. Hopefully on other days than you were there he gets the chance to feed his soul too. Why does one choose to use "traditional" methods over the modern alternatives? Surely not "just to get the job done". Everything I've seen and heard indicates there's far more to it than that. To challenge and test ourselves; to simplify; to preserve; to dance to a different drumbeat; all of these are equally valid reasons to do something. Best regards, Bill ------------------------------ End of Baren Digest V1 #9 *************************