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

Baren Digest              Thursday, 18 March 1999      Volume 06 : Number 491

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From: Graham Scholes <gscholes@home.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 21:53:22 -0800
Subject: [Baren 3596] Book  

Could some one on the listserver recommend a book that would serve as a
information resource as well as touching on the technique of Japanese
woodblock print making.  I suppose information regarding the European
method of opaque inks of water of oil base would be a plus.

Thanks

Graham

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From: "Daniel Kelly" <daniel@vowel.or.jp>
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 15:02:22 +0900
Subject: [Baren 3597] Re: Book  

 Hello Graham,
Could you clarify a bit what you want regarding the inks?
D

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From: "Daniel Kelly" <daniel@vowel.or.jp>
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 15:43:50 +0900
Subject: [Baren 3598] Re: Viscosity printing 

Hello Dean,
Your statements on the Baren are excellent as they apply to all of us in a
new and not always JAPANESE world. But in fact the baren refers to a
specifically Japanese approach to making prints as they came from China. The
one thing I would like to add to your words regards things specific to the
Japanese method. The Japanese technique is unique, for example, in that
gradations are printed on a block which has no gradation. This method can
only be done well with a baren and water based inks.(For you roller people,
this is different than a rainbow roll.)  It is not seen in other wood cuts.
(Think of the German wood cuts for example.) If one were not interested in
specific aspects of Japanese prints then your subject is the whole world of
wood cut prints. (Wood block refers to Japanese prints and wood cut refers
to everything else using carved wood printing plates.) There is plenty of
overlap such as the press... plenty of wood blocks are printed on presses,
with spoons, with bare hands, what ever. This group though by its very name
is about Japanese wood block prints. If you want to destroy the study and
advancement of this approach then water it down with all the other print
techniques. I think we have heard there are lots of printmaking groups out
there.
Daniel
BTW we have a very nice show of Edvard Monk prints here in Kyoto... they are
not called wood block prints.

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From: Jack Reisland <reislandj001@hawaii.rr.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 22:52:13 +0000
Subject: [Baren 3599] Re: The Baren 

Hello Gary;

  I too joined the Baren group with an interest in Japanese wood block
printing. Before I signed up I had read all the back postings in the
Archive, and gone through the Encyclopedia. I found these to be very
thorough sources of information. As an example, a couple of days ago I
spent the day in the Libraries at the University of Hawaii, going
through one of the largest collections of books on Japanese woodblock
printing and prints that I had ever found, everything from works on
technique published at the very beginning of this century, the classics
from Yoshida and Phillips to a large collection of works in Japanese.
After several hours I found almost no information on Japanese woodblock
technique that has not been covered on this Baren site. Although I'm
quite sure that the subject has not yet been exhausted, it seems to me
that it will get harder to find more new (at least to us) information to
cover. Quite often, the questions that new members do bring up on
traditional Japanese techniques elicit a polite referral to the Archives
or Encyclopedia. I can only hope, as  perhaps you do, that after a
while, all of the questions on presses and oil based inks will also be
answered, but then what? David is quite busy now, so we are missing his
one-point-lessons. In the meantime, I am learning an awful lot about
printing on presses, and who knows?, maybe one day I'll be glad I
learned some of that stuff.
   I'll just wait and see what happens, after all, I remember a --very--
long stretch of postings about computers and art, and that seems to have
thankfully all played out (please!).

Yours, Jack Reisland

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From: David Bull <davebull@woodblock.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 21:15:50 +0900
Subject: [Baren 3600] Vox Populi ... and Vox Dei ... 

So, I come back after a fantastic trip down to see the spring snows on
Mt. Fuji, and find two days worth of 'interesting' postings ...  It
seems that it is time to sort out a few things on [Baren].

Thing #1) A few months ago, I was really not enjoying [Baren] very
much.  Compared with the time say, a year or so ago, when I had turned
on my computer with great anticipation every morning to see what had
come in, I was finding almost nothing of interest.  The forum had become
a place where a bunch of people with a general interest in printmaking
rubbed together socially, but I found myself growing increasingly
frustrated at the lack of content relevant to my work.  

Starting up the 'After Five' group helped a great deal ... I could read
the playful and chatty postings from that group in one frame of mind,
and then turn to the main forum for the 'real' stuff.  Splitting things
up was a good idea I think.

But here we are again, and [Baren] has mutated into something quite
different from what I intended.  All of you well know where my personal
printmaking interests lie.  When the odd post about 'press' topics came
up in the past I accepted it in a spirit of openness and general
interest, even though such things were of no interest to me personally. 
It was not my place to try and dictate what my friends chose to discuss.

Well, it still isn't ... but how far can we go with this?  How well can
a forum be run when the list-owner himself has no interest in what is
going on?  Not very, I think ...  

One answer is perhaps to make another split - start up a new list (or
perhaps use that list that Brad has started somewhere) for the
conversations about press based printmaking, and make [Baren] into a
forum for 'baren-based' printmaking that generally follows the Japanese
traditions.

On the other hand, maybe I'm worrying about nothing.  There has always
been a pretty wide ebb and flow of topics on this list, and perhaps this
'hijack' by the 'press gang' is just temporary (do I _really_ need to bother
with a 'smiley' here?).  [Baren] certainly is a healthy and flourishing list, 
and to mess with the 'formula' now might just be counterproductive.

On still another hand, maybe it's us 'baren' types who should split off
and set up our own list!  Just how many of us are left here anyway?

I look forward to your feedback on this please.  (Please understand that
I'm not trying to threaten you 'pressers' into getting into 'line', I'm just
trying to decide where my personal responsibility for maintaining this
forum lies ...)

***

Thing #2)  The exchange - and the 'Print Folio Refusee Show' comments
...

There is I think, a bit of a misunderstanding here.  Yes indeed there is
a 'Print Folio Refusee Show' happening ... it's called [Baren Exchange
3] ...

Given the 'rock and a hard place' facts that a lot of people want to
exchange prints, but a whole lot of them can't make more than 30 or 40
copies, there are not too many alternatives available.

But please 'do the arithmetic':
- - Sign-up starts for [Baren Exchange 2] (open at first only to previous
non-participants)
- - Twenty people sign up. (This is my guesstimate, based on a careful
reading of the membership list.)
- - That leaves 10 spots.  All 26 previous exchange participants want to
do it again, and they all madly try to get their email in right on the
button of sign-up opening ...
- - Ten of them make it, the other 16 don't.
- - A few minutes later, the [Baren Exchange 3] sign-up sheet is posted,
with of course those 16 names already filled in.
- - That leaves 14 spots that have to be filled before it gets going.
- - I know from personal emails with a bunch of you, that many of you
enjoy these exchanges so much that you are more than willing to be in
more than one at a time.  
- - Between those crazy people, plus a few more we can get by putting out
a general call on the forum to 'Come on in, we just need a few more!', I
think that the thirty can easily be reached.
- - [Baren Exchange 3] then gets under way ...

And the 'Print Folio Refusee Show' ...?   There _are_ no 'refusees' -
everybody who wants to be in an exchange, _can_ be in an exchange.

No, we can't all be in every exchange.  But project it ahead to the
future a ways - do _you_ want to do an edition of 250 for [Baren
Exchange 10]?  No, I didn't think so ...  I think this solution (cut it
off at 30 and immediately open the sign-up for the next one) is the most
viable of the various options.

***

OK, now let's hear some of the Vox Populi ...

Dave

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End of Baren Digest V6 #491
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