Hello baren-ers,
Let me try sending this again (tried on New Year's Day, but evidently my
post may not have been received). As a new member, I thought I'd introduce
myself and wish you all a Happy and Productive New Year.
For quite awhile, I've been enjoying visiting your sites and reading some of
the archived (and now newest) member messages and articles from David Bull.
When I become more proficient, I hope to participate in the Baren Forum's
print exchanges. I live in Central Florida, USA, and if I'm lucky, I'll find
others in my immediate locale who do woodblock printmaking (especially moku
hanga); I've not been active in any art communities here, and I tend to be a
bit of an urban hermit. I do have a few acquaintances, whose work I admire,
on the Baren Forum through my previous work in the World Haiku Club and the
editing and production of it's online magazine, World Haiku Review. Hello to
those I've met through that work with WHC/WHR, and to those I've yet to make
acquaintance with.
I'm just getting started with woodblock printmaking (at long last!), and
look forward to when I will have the tools and materials needed to start
learning the Japanese methods, although it may take me awhile to amass what
I need for that. I have recently carved and run an artist's proof from my
first recent and very humble woodblock, the backside of a piece from some
discarded exterior siding carved with beginner's tools, printed with readily
available water-based Speedball ink. The last times I've done that were in
high school art class, decades ago, and in a community college printmaking
class, almost as many decades ago. I've posted my first attempt on a blog
site I started recently in my various efforts to get my creative impulses
jump-started and running:
http://myhermitude.blogspot.com/2007/12/illustration-friday-soar-between.htm
l
My favorite hanga and woodblock/woodcut artists include American artist,
Karen Kunc, Japanese sosaku hanga artists, Kiyoshi Saito (my all time
favorite), Junichiro Sekino and Rokushi Mizufune...there are more. During a
trip to Japan, a group I was with decided to dine at a little restaurant in
Kamakura, where I was delighted to find walls covered with actual woodblock
prints of Kiyoshi Saito. To that point, I'd seen his works only through
Internet images and books. I was in my idea of art Nirvana for over 3 weeks
from Tokyo and Kamakura to Akita and back down to Kyoto.
Best Wishes,
DW (Debi) Bender