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As I board the plane to attend the 32nd Arts & Crafts Conference at Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC, I’m in disbelief that I’ve been exhibiting at this event for over twenty years!?!? But no surprise there when I see my ever-increasing gray hair.
Some of you asked me recently whether I get tired of making a blockprint. It’s really a good question and so I’ve been giving it a thought or two.
And I have to say I do NOT get tired of this art and craft. Technically I’m about half way from where I want to be. I still want to master more skills in carving and printing. Artistically I have many more subjects I want to work on.
The new “Waterlilies” triptych is a perfect example of my continuing exploration. I did make a Koi Pond print over ten years ago based on my memories from my childhood in northern Japan. I liked the Koi print then. Yet I still wanted to work on it again, this time with more fish, with waterlilies, with more mysterious dark ripples where these brilliantly-colored fish hide.
Like Claude Monet‘s obsession with his lily ponds I’m fascinated by the interplay between the light and the dark, — the seen and the unseen. In the dark murky water, the memories remain in my subconscious. But occasionally an image or two comes to the surface with such clarity and light. Where there’s darkness, a shadow, we cherish life’s fleeting brilliance.
And that’s why I still make prints, trying to capture this sense of living, after twenty-some years.
Celebrate the holidays & join us for our annual Holiday Sale and Open House for last minute holiday gifts and extra sale items and a print your own Holiday Coaster / Ornament printing demo!
December 15th
11am - 5pm
(Please note that the date has changed from what was previously advertised!)
The Arts & Crafts Press
2515 B South Tacoma Way
Tacoma, WA 98406
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I really like the book personally. Each page comes alive with her amazing adventure stories, her unbelievable stamina and resolve, her keen observations, and her yearnings as one woman to make these dangerous swimming and canoeing voyages to hula'ana (a Hawaiian term for a place where it is necessary to swim past a cliff that blocks passage along the coast, a sheer cliff where the sea beats), all alone in the 1960s.
This morning I finished re-reading and highlighting all the locations where she traveled and the keywords in her book. I've been making notes of the Hawaiian names of trees, flowers, and birds that I've never heard before I started working on this book project.
Putting the book down, I called up and talked with Mr. Walter Naki, the native local fisherman who is said to be the only person that can take me to the impenetrable northeast coast of Molokai. I've been staring at his name for a few weeks now.
"I realize that the ocean is really rough and wind fierce, it's not safe to go there in winter, but the deadline for the illustration project is March or April, so I need to ask you if you can take me to the northeast coast in January," I asked Mr. Naki over the phone in one breath. Most of the charter boats and fishermen won't take you to the north coast during winter month.
All my hope was in this man saying yes this morning.
I quickly added, "I'll be in Molokai for a week and won't schedule anything else with the hope that one of the days will be sunny or the ocean calmer. . ."
"Yes we can do that," Mr. Naki answered simply. “You have a week? From 12th through 18th. . .that's really 6 days. But yes, I think so. We can do that." He was matter of fact and reassuring.
Then I started worrying. I love to swim, but I'm more of an urban swimmer. . . And Molokai's north coast is no tropical paradise that one might expect from all other Hawaian islands with sunny sandy beaches, turquoise ocean, and palm trees. I'm nothing like Audrey Sutherland or Mr. Naki who is comfortable swimming in the rough ocean like the north coast of Molokai. I love the ocean, but at the same time the idea of the infinite depth of dark Molokai ocean scares me.
In just a few weeks with Mr. Naki at the stern on his boat, I'll be witnessing and seeing what Audrey saw over 50 years ago. It's an assignment of rare opportunity.
But let's rewind and face the reality. I might get seasick on Mr. Naki's boat. My sketch book might get wet and ruined by the sea sprays. I might drop my cellphone (my camera devise) into the deep ocean. . . We may not get a clear calm day and may not be able to venture out to the sea while I’m in Molokai. Many unspoken fears are circling in my head.
Then there’s excitement I'm craving to be there, to feel the breeze of the trade winds from the north. I want to feel the water and the mist from the legendary tall waterfalls. I want to see the tallest sea cliffs in Hawaii and figure out the best ways to convey its grandeur. I want to smell the sweet fragrance of wild ginger flowers, to see the colors of the sunset and examine the intense ultramarine blue of the ocean in Molokai.
After all it has to start with the experiences. My woodblock printing is a very slow, measured work process, unlike the fast-paced adventures on Molokai. From sketching, carving blocks, to printing with inks, it's simply slow and laborious. But all this slow studio work has to start with a real experience - sometimes short, ephemeral and fleeting - whether it be the warm sunlight over the sycamore trees or the milky fog over a canyon.
As Audrey Sutherland sought for the authentic experiences in Molokai half a century ago, I'll be searching for "the authentic" as artist and block printer. I know that the challenges are ahead and so the excitement and worries are whirling in my head.
It's December 10th, 2017 today, one month until I fly to Molokai. I am sitting here at my cozy house in Tacoma, Washington, with Molokai on my mind.
As you might know, we use various antique letterpress printing presses made between the 1890s and the 1960s for making our note cards and prints. We pamper them daily, cleaning and oiling to ensure smooth and long-term operation.
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Here is our Sosha, who first came to the Tohoku tsunami area with his sister Tamara, immediately after the disaster. Here he's showing us the lower beach area where once there was a thriving fishing community before the 15-meter tsunami engulfed it. Now it's just dirt, half-built roads, and a bunch of construction trucks there. Since the initial recovery efforts, Sosha has continued to travel to the area from his Tokyo home and to help with the reconstruction efforts. Now living in Minamisanriku in Tohoku-region, he has been working closely with the communities in the region and is actively operating a Nature-Education program called Earth Camp. http://www.ceco.jp/ec/ I have to admit I'm a very proud step-mom of these amazing individuals!
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“This is the personal printing press that belonged to Elbert Hubbard,” explained Curt Maranto, as he toured me through the printing room at Roycroft Campus in the village of East Aurora, half-an-hour outside of Buffalo, New York. The old iron-hand press stood there, covered in dust. It seemed ready to be cleaned and oiled, to be put to a good use once again. Curt is a member of the Roycroft Campus Corporation (http://www.
The hand written letter offers a tactile connection between sender and receiver which is lost when the message is sent digitally via email or text. In a hand written letter, the intention and care is evident in the curve of a letter looped across the page. Set to the task of sifting through old emails in our inboxes, how long would we last before being fed up with boredom? Confronted with a box of old letters however, we become lost in the ink on the pages, able to sink into them for hours.
It may not be the fastest or most efficient form of communication, but a letter is not something that can be lost into the depths of your inbox or in the next software update. It is a way to show the care and intention from one person to another.
It is this tactile connection from sender to receiver that we wish to share with our customers. We lovingly design and print our notecards so that they enhance your everyday life, to make the mundane special and spectacular. So I urge you to write more letters. To find a friend or loved one that lives across the country or even across the street and write them a letter and show them that you care.
While I admit that the irony of this article being posted on a digital blog is blatantly obvious to me, I would like to note that its ideas originated from ink and paper, lovingly written by hand in my looping, un-spell checked writing.
]]>Today marks the beginning steps of restoration on our 20th Century Reliance Iron Hand Press. Those of you who have visited the shop may have seen the disassembled press in the corner. It’s been our wish to get the press back into working order for quite a while and now we’re finally beginning the process!
Day one began with a consultation with the wonderful Carl Montford who has restored a number of iron hand presses in the past and will be our guide to making sure we get the press back together in one piece.
The good news from Carl? We have successfully moved the press twice without losing any of the original parts, and the frame is still in good, sturdy condition.
The bad news from Carl? There’s a lot of rust on the frame of the press that will need to be removed and to do so, we'll need lots of elbow grease.
A quick run down of the process ahead:
Step one will be to move the press away from the wall to its final resting place so it is easier to clean. Then comes the de-rusting process. A long and very dirty task, this will probably take up most of our time. Next the press gets a fresh coat of paint and and some sparkly gold leaf on the lettering up top. Restoration of the wooden fixtures of the press comes next. Then finally it’s on to assembly day.
Thanks to the generosity of the Spadeworks Tacoma Creative Enterprise Tier Three Grant, we are able to dedicate our time and energy into the restoration of this piece of history.
Press Specs:
Press Type: 20th Century Reliance Iron Hand Press
Model: 1A
Serial No.: 1275
Patented: 1895 by W.M. A. Field Co., Chicago, Illinois
Weight: 1,300 lbs.
Footprint: H: 5.5” x L: 4” x W: 2.5”
(The Wonderful Carl Montford, our restoration guide.)
(Carl pointing out to us the excessive rusting on the top of the frame while holding the prized bag of smaller excess parts)
(One day all this rust will be replaced with new paint and a shiny gold leaf on the lettering.)
"Tacoma’s Spaceworks program has received a $100,000 grant from the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, for use toward its Creative Business Strategic Growth Plan."
We (The Arts & Crafts Press) are a proud alumnus of this Creative Enterprise program and are excited to continue to learn and work with the Spaceworks expert business advisory team for their upcoming Tier II program this spring.
Thank you, Tacoma & Thank you, Spaceworks, for welcoming us and continuing to work with us!
To read more about this feat, please click here. And to find out about Spaceworks, click here.
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Handcraft work is not only artistically rewarding, but it does something positive to our mind and body. One participant came late to the workshop, because of the torrential downpour and accidents on the freeways, telling me how exhausted and stressed she was. But as she progressed with her work, and especially when she began carving the intricate designs, her tensions seemed to melt away. I gave her a magna visor to try out, to carve out the most fine details of bird legs. Once she she put that on, it seemed she found her own pace, her own world. She worked intently for the rest of the workshop and created a beautiful blockprint.
Many special thanks to Sebastian, Emily, and everyone at the Center and especially Carol Sauvion, the proprietor of Freehand Gallery, potter, and the visionary producer of the documentary series "Craft in America". You all inspire us to do better work!
]]>Handcraft work is not only artistically rewarding, but it does something positive to our mind and body. One participant came late to the workshop, because of the torrential downpour and accidents on the freeways, telling me how exhausted and stressed she was. But as she progressed with her work, and especially when she began carving the intricate designs, her tensions seemed to melt away. I gave her a magna visor to try out, to carve out the most fine details of bird legs. Once she she put that on, it seemed she found her own pace, her own world. She worked intently for the rest of the workshop and created a beautiful blockprint.
Many special thanks to Sebastian, Emily, and everyone at the Center and especially Carol Sauvion, the proprietor of Free Hand, potter, and the visionary producer of the documentary series "Craft in America". You all inspire us to do better work!
]]>Email us at info@artsandcraftspress.com with your name and number of people and we'll send them your way!
]]>Want to learn to make your own block-printed Valentine's Day card? Then you can sign up for an introductory linoleum block printing workshop that Yoshiko Yamamoto will be teaching.
WHEN: January 31st (Sun) from 12 noon till 3 pm.
WHERE: Craft in America Center
8415 W. Third Street, Los Angeles, 90048
To sign up, please contact info@craftinamerica.org or call (323) 951-0610.
Space is limited, so sign up early!
More Information? Click here.
The beginning of the year brings us much hope and anticipation!
This month we're excited to launch this newly redesigned website. Our web address is the same as our old one, but the new site itself is more user-friendly, visually pleasing, and responsive to various applications. Kudos to our wonderfully talented studio staff, Taylor, who managed this make-over!
So please visit our site and enjoy browsing our website.
And free free to give us your feedback!! We always appreciate ALL your comments -- both positive and negative ones as we learn a lot from you.
]]>Join us November 21st from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm for our annual open studio and holiday sale!
It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since we opened our Tacoma studio location with the grand opening event.
Stock up on holiday gifts, print a keepsake on one of our vintage presses, and enjoy holiday treats. Come early at 11 am and enjoy the holiday harp music by Cassandra Reinbolt.
]]>2015. . . Born in the year of the sheep, I’m excited about this auspicious new year. . .
(http://www.craftinamerica.org)
The executive producer Carol Sauvion and her team will arrive at our studio in Tacoma this Saturday. They are going to film our work process from sketching, everything from carving blocks, making polymer plates, to printing on our letterpress printing presses. I’ll be making a special new note card “Winter Cardinals” for this PBS show.
What a great way to start a new year!
Many Changes & New Studio Space
But looking back on the year past, I must confess I’m so glad we’re done with 2014 and that 2015 is here now.
Last year was a year of change and transition. I do appreciate good changes, but even as good as they were, there were way too many. We first moved our home to Tacoma, and spent months searching for the perfect studio space. After signing a commercial lease for our new studio, we spent months gutting out the debris, building a showroom and kitchen, cleaning, painting, adding shelving and storage and replacing broken windows, finally reaching the day we were able to move our antique printing presses.Somewhat “shellshocked” from all the change, now I can look around our surroundings with a smile. Yay, we survived 2014!
I really love our new studio space. Compared to our former home/studio in a small town of Port Orchard –a large suburban house with a two-car garage (which served as our pressroom for the last decade) — the new location is nice and airy, zoned commercial, and perfectly laid out for a small letterpress-printing business.
But part of me sorely misses the quietude, the gentle breeze and sunlight, the trees and birds of our old home/studio. I fondly remember the time our backyard hens forced open the sliding door and marched inside to see what we were up to that day. A raccoon family often came and lazily hung around in our enormous maple tree. Our children used to race to eat cucumbers and peas as they matured in our backyard.
But even without those pleasing natural elements I have to say that the new studio space is quite functional and wonderful. With ample room we can work comfortably without bumping into each other.
Now that our studio is open to public, occasional visitors come by.
I enjoy giving a quick tour of our old printing presses. “This one is our real workhorse, Heidi, she was built by German press makers and I have to say this prints more than 100,000 note cards a year for us. And that ‘Old Gordon’ is so beautiful, don’t you think? Look at the curve on the flywheel. . . But all these presses have one thing in common. It’s a relief printing process where raised area of the block receives theink for printing. ” I LOVE using and learning to use these old presses, some dating back to the 1890s and our newest one is from the 1950s.
Often our visitors are amazed to find that we actually use these old presses to print all our note cards and block prints. With prevalence of digital printing, giclee, color copies,and offset printing, it is understandable. Why do people like me use old presses to print, when newer technologies are available?
Why do we letterpress today?
The Economist in its recent issue published a short article about the recent renaissance of old printing (esp. letterpress). http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2014/12/renaissance-printing
In a nutshell, the article describes the two chief reasons for the rebirth of old letterpress printing. One is that younger generation got “digital fatigue” and they’re looking for “individualized products and hands-on experience”. Hear, hear!! Enough screen time, enough scrolling!! They want real sweat, smear, and smudge. I can relate to that!!
Another reason is that paradoxically computers helped save the dying trade of letterpress printing and helped spread its popular appeal. Rather than learning the craft of setting metal type to print, now we can compose sentences in the computer and make a polymer plate to print from.
I use both hand-carved blocks and polymer plates for our work at the Press. The polymer plates are durable and suitable for our note card production as we usually print as many as three-thousand note cards at one time. Linoleum blocks won’t last more than 200, 300 imprints and so I use them for our limited-edition prints.
Philosophically too I’m attracted to both the handcraft of the hand-carved blocks and also the digital advantage that polymer plates offer. I have been using this hybrid method for years and I think I’m always trying to gauge the balance between the “hand” and the “machine.”
As William Morris said over a century ago, my goal is for us to be “the masters of our machines and not their slaves,” to find the balance between our hands and machine.
I think this quote is not relevant just for us printers. I think it’s relevant for woodworkers, textile artists, factory workers, writers, cooks, homemakers, office workers, medical professionals, store clerks, janitorial workers, and all humans who work.
And so here I am, in my new studio, carving a new linoleum block and taking breaks to sip tea and type this blog entry. Often I think of the age-old question. . . how do we make our work pleasurable and meaningful, not just for myself, but for all of us who work at our studio?
I hope your new year will be a great one too!
]]>Now a step-grandma, I was thrilled and overjoyed by the idea of a cute onesie with my design that I can put on Alvin, my grandson. I answered Jeff hastily to “go ahead.”
As a cat has nine lives, my designs have many incarnations. It’s fun to trace their transformations or mutations. So here is the chronology.
I first designed this “Love Chick” image as part of our 2013 Chicken desktop calendar pages.
The “Love Chick” was a February (Valentine) design, with one baby chick giving a heart-shaped leaf to the other.
We had four wonderful backyard hens then. When the chicks were still a few weeks old, they loved to play with small twigs and leaves outside. They were adorable and perfect little models; I made many watercolor sketches.
My chicken obsession continued and the calendar images became a set of “mini chicken cards” which were then sold out immediately.
I still couldn’t get enough of the chick image; I decided to add a few more colors and make a full-fledged letterpress card.
And now I’m thinking to try this image on a tea-towel or a mug. . . peep, peep, peep. . .
PS: Jeff says that the “chick” onesies will be available in late November. I can’t wait! If you’d like more information, please check out the website for Liberty Graphics. (http://www.lgtees.com)
]]>I just finished making a new block print “Peace Lanterns”. (The image above on the left is the new block print and the one on the right is my quick watercolor sketch.) It’s a scene of the lantern-floating ceremony “From Hiroshima to Hope” that is held annually near Seattle on August 6th. The event advocates world peace and opposes warfares and violence. It also commemorates the lives that were lost by the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (Please view http://vimeo.com/16567779 for a great short clip of this event.)
Our family attended this event last year. My then-six-year-old daughter is usually shy, but on the night of the “From Hiroshima to Hope” event last year, she was ready to volunteer. She jumped into the lake water and helped hundreds of participants float their paper lanterns. I was also inspired by this beautiful gathering and so when I got home, I created a few watercolors.
Then I decided to turn one of the watercolors into a blockprint. As I worked on this print, I kept having a question: Why do I make a block print of watercolors? Obviously this is how we block printers often work. While carving away the linoleum (fun, but laborious process), the same question kept coming back: Why do I make prints from watercolors?
It took me weeks (besides other things I’m trying to get done daily) to carve this linoleum block. Then it took another few weeks for me to work on color separations, make polymer color blocks for all the colors, and prepare the proof copies before my assistant and I were able to begin printing 180 copies of the print.
But then my sense of doubt was all erased when we began printing. As my children like to say, printing is like magic! It’s when all the details and layers become fused into a cohesive whole. And the process of printing is so tactile and full of visual rewards. Every layer of colors adds depth and nuance to the print. Here (below) you can see how the print looks after the first six colors being printed.
Plus with the block print, the colors are more definitive than watercolors. The shapes and lines become simplified and cleaner. And the composition is more refined.
When I finished printing the last color and saw the completed blockprint, I felt a sense of relief. For the last two months while I was working on this new print, I felt as though I’d been swimming under water, holding my breath, thinking and imagining how all these blocks and colors come together to make one print.
Below you can see another example of this transformation from a pencil sketch, watercolor, and to a block print, made by Walter Phillips, a well-known Canadian block print artist and watercolorist.
For my “Peace Lantern” print, I ended up using 14 blocks. We used 100% cotton Rives BFK paper, mold-made in France. Fifty copies (numbered from 1 through 50) have been donated to “Hiroshima to Hope” event organizers to raise funds for their annual event. To find out more about this print, please visit our website http://www.artsandcraftspress.com/BigPicture.asp?catalogid=462. And to find out more about the “Hiroshima” event, please visit http://fromhiroshimatohope.org.
]]>I enjoy drawing birds. Right now on my desk sits the chickadee carving for my new print. Chickadees are curious, friendly little birds with a cute black-cap and white breast, about the size of a large egg. They jump from branch to branch, hanging here and there; they’re a natural acrobat.
Recently I caught what my husband calls “a bird fever”; it is like the spring fever. I am just obsessed with birds. I have the urge to learn about them. I wanted to learn beyond American robins and stellar jays. Just imagine my excitement when I spotted a couple of bluish looking birds (the size of American robin) and could intelligently say that they weren’t stellar jays, but they were Western scrub jays swooping down from the cherry tree.
I’ve been seen walking around the backyard with my I-phone app for bird call identifications. I attended an Audubon meeting at a local library. I bought books on birding. I’m trying to act like a birder, but honestly I have to say, I’m not even a fledgling birder. I’m more of a nestling, or should I say I’m basically a hatchling birder at this stage.
Since I love music, I am particularly interested in the sounds they make. Birds sing just as we humans use our voices to communicate. Bird calls are varied and functionally specific, such as “Come here, darling” (a mating song) “Keep out!” (territorial signal) “Danger!” (alarm call). A male sings more often than a female as their singing is often a gesture of courtship. The length of the male birds’ songs correlates directly to his popularity.
Sure, so far these all sound pretty much a common sense. But it gets more interesting here. Why do they sing so loudly at dawn? Louder than other times in the day? Have you noticed?
Is it the perfect stillness of the morning air which allows their voices to transmit further? Or is it just a perfect time for love gestures from a boy bird to a girl bird who is nesting somewhere in the morning? Or are they simply excited with too much stored energy in the morning? (Look at my children racing the staircase up and down in the morning! We can’t stop them.)
We humans really don’t seem to know why. . . why they sing at dawn, so much louder than the rest of the day?
Or simpler yet, how do they sing so well, I wonder. How do the little birds produce such pure tones with such ease, out of that tiny body? I found out that birds don’t use larynx for their voice production. They use syrinx instead. Is it the perfect placement of sound traveling through their small bodies into their tiny head cavities that enable their perfect voice production? As an amateur soprano myself, I admire these small backyard singers’ remarkable abilities.
Fascination with birds is boundless. Over the centuries and across continents — from the ancient Greece and China, to Victorian America, humans tried to capture these wonderfully musical creatures on earth by making bird automatons. We humans have the desire to replicate the delicate songs of the birds, but it is like trying to count all the stars in night sky.
Inevitably bird songs have inspired music composers as well. Songs inspired by birds are everywhere, from folk songs, classical, to pop music. From imitations of bird sounds (like cuckoo), to the pastoral sounds depicted by the call of a lark, we have a rich legacy of “bird inspired music.” I am compiling a list of bird-inspired music right now, but the list is endless. Just to name a few of the classical music composers, Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Edward Grieg, Saint-Saens, Berlioz, Benjamin Britten, Messian. It goes on and on. Flute, piano, violin, and soprano voice, among others, have been used to portray their brilliant whistles and songs.
Biber’s Sonata Representativa in A Major is so much fun with all the faithful imitation of bird sounds, from nightingale, cuckoo, quail, cock, hen. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VXcuaHwpac) And if you’re curious what a human voice can portray, please listen to the great soprano Lily Pons’ “Pretty Mocking Bird” or Kathleen Battle’s “Lo Here the Gentle Lark” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3itv-6VT7lc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mu7oZXcYxg, respectively.)
It is spring, dear friends. I hope you get up early in the morning, walk outside and enjoy the beauty of their songs at dawn. Some of the migratory birds will be gone in a few more months, so now is the time to listen to their songs. Not a morning person? Hmmm. . . Just try it once; the reward is for you to discover!
]]>How do we go on after a catastrophic event like a loss of a loved one or a massive hurricane or a tsunami ?
At 2:46 pm, all throughout Japan, peace bells rang and citizens– old couples, office workers, to school children–bowed their heads in silence. Three years ago yesterday in Japan, the 9 magnitude Tohoku Earthquake hit the Northeast region of Japan and the massive tsunami took over 15000 lives. When this tragedy happened, we teamed up with an emergency medial relief team called Empact Northwest; I made a block print of the Matsushima Bay (once a beautiful bay in the Tohoku region) for a fundraiser. Together we were able to donate over fifty thousand dollars to the recovery effort.
Today in America (3/11) marks exactly three years since the earthquake. Still over 2600 people are missing and with the ensuing problems at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, the area continues to struggle with the post-disaster recovery. Currently the Japanese government shut down all 48 nuclear power plants for safety inspections, with a future plan to resume their operations.
Japanese citizens’ anti-nuclear sentiment has been rising. On March 9th, many protesters took to the streets in Tokyo — rather an unusual spectacle in Japan where group conformity is still important. They argue that Japan needs to stop using nuclear power and instead look into alternative energy source such as geothermal (which is abundant, constant, and promising!), solar, and wind.
A group of about 100 men and women also staged a protest in front of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. They released 300 red balloons with the words “No to nuclear power” in Japanese. A perfect peace message for an insular government headed by Prime Minister Abe who seems to lack the awareness of international political sentiments.
This year I’m planning to release my own “red balloons” into the Seattle sky. Not during day time like the protesters in Tokyo. But it’ll be at night. A group of Seattle-area volunteers have been staging an anti-war and anti-nuclear weapons ceremony and event called “From Hiroshima to Hope”. At Green Lake in North Seattle neighborhood, they invite thousands of attendees to make a paper lantern, write their messages with a brush and ink, light a candle inside, float them into the lake.
My husband volunteers for this event and our kids and I participated last year. The experience of floating over 1000 lanterns into the dark lake water was moving and mesmerizing. When I returned home, I made a quick watercolor sketch. Using this sketch I’ll be making an original linoleum block print for the 2014 “From Hiroshima to Hope” poster. Just like the red ball0ons in Tokyo, our paper lanterns will be filled with our wishes and hopes for a better world, a better future.
]]>Today I finished drawing and designing one of the quote cards, “Plant a Tree”, based on a poem by Lucy Larcom. Known today for her memoir A New England Girlhood (1889), Larcom was a widely published poet, teacher, and an abolitionist. In this book Larcom recorded the lives of New England girls who were working at textile mills in Lowell, calling attention to the dangerous conditions of factory work. It is a vivid account of the fast changing lifestyle of workers from agrarian to industrial age in America.
Larcom’s phrase “I defy the machinery to make me its slave” still resonates today. Here at the Arts & Crafts Press, we use both our hands and machinery. Just as William Morris advocated in his writings over a century ago, we’re trying to find a good balance between the use of our hands and machines. As I write this, my assistant, Rachel, is printing our note cards using our 1951 Heidelberg letterpress printing press. And on my worktable is a unfinished linoleum block for the next print, “Banditry of Chickadees”.
The goal for us is to find the pleasurable balance between machinery and handwork, in order to offer our note cards and prints at an affordable price while keeping our quality.
Below is the entire poem “Plant a Tree” by Larcom. Enjoy!
“PLANT A TREE”
He who plants a tree
Plants a hope.
Rootlets up through fibres blindly grope;
Leaves unfold into horizons free.
So man’s life must climb
From the clods of time
Unto heavens sublime.
Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree,
What the glory of thy boughs shall be?
He who plants a tree
Plants a joy;
Plants a comfort that will never cloy;
Every day a fresh reality,
Beautiful and strong,
To whose shelter throng
Creatures blithe with song.
If thou couldst but know, thou happy tree,
Of the bliss that shall inhabit thee!
He who plants a tree,–
He plants peace.
Under its green curtains jargons cease.
Leaf and zephyr murmur soothingly;
Shadows soft with sleep
Down tired eyelids creep,
Balm of slumber deep.
Never hast thou dreamed, thou blessed tree,
Of the benediction thou shalt be.
He who plants a tree,–
He plants youth;
Vigor won for centuries in sooth;
Life of time, that hints eternity!
Boughs their strength uprear;
New shoots, every year,
On old growths appear;
Thou shalt teach the ages, sturdy tree,
Youth of soul is immortality.
He who plants a tree,–
He plants love,
Tents of coolness spreading out above
Wayfarers he may not live to see.
Gifts that grow are best;
Hands that bless are blest;
Plant! life does the rest!
Heaven and earth help him who plants a tree,
And his work its own reward shall be.
by Lucy Larcom
Born March 5 1824; Died April 27, 1893
Luckily, during my visit to Tokyo this past January, I was able to visit and view one of these exhibits at the Ota City Folk Museum in Tokyo. (The other exhibit is held at Chiba Art Museum.)
Hasui lived his later years in Ota ward and so this ward is the depository of his papers, sketches, watercolors, and the woodblock prints that were printed by Watanabe Publishing house. The Ota Museum has planned a three-part exhibit: the first one focusing on his work through the 1920s, the second one covering the period from the Kanto Earthquake in 1923 into the 1930s, and the third one from 1930s through his later years.
A good ten-minute walk from the Minami Magome station, the Ota Museum building is an unassuming modern concrete building. But once inside I was immediately amazed by the quality of the items on display. The glass cases were filled with Hasui woodblock prints and, not only that, the prints were arranged carefully next to the pencil sketches and watercolors he had prepared for each print.
I had read before that late in his life, due to a fire, Hasui lost most of his original watercolors and sketches. I had never thought I would be able to see so many watercolors of such astonishing quality by him.
As a block print artist, I am familiar with the process of making woodblock prints. Being able to examine first-hand various stages of Hasui’s work — from rough sketches to final execution, was a real treat for me, and I believe will be for many others. Especially I enjoyed viewing how he studied and sketched parts of the buildings, trees, and townscapes, first with pencil, then in watercolor. As artists, we’re constantly trying to achieve a harmonious composition — we eliminate unwanted details, rearranges compositions, find motifs, create patterns, adjust colors, so that the final work will hopefully achieve the balance we wish for.
One might be tempted to ask which he/she prefers — Hasui’s watercolor sketches or the finished block print. Without question there is undeniable perfection and beauty in the finished woodblock prints executed by the Watanabe publishing house based on Haui’s sketches. Compared to the prints, Hasui’s sketches look unfinished and raw. But the real value of these sketches lies in its ability to reveal this artists’ process of work, his skills, and his mind at work.
The exhibit will be on until March 2nd and I hope many people can have the opportunity to see this wonderful exhibit. For those who cannot make it to Japan this winter, the Museum produced a very comprehensive color catalog of the three-part exhibit. It includes all the images that are on exhibit. But I must say that there is absolutely no comparison between looking at the printed catalog pages and seeing the actual sketches and woodblock prints. Nuance and immediacy are gone in these catalog pages. If you really want to look into the artist’s process of creation, then I recommend you hop on the airplane to Tokyo today!
Information about the Hasui Exhibit:
■Early Period: from 27th October (Sunday) to 1st December (Sunday) 2013 “Works from Taisho Era to Restoration after Great Kanto Earthquake” — closed
■Middle Period: from 7th December 2013 (Saturday) to 19th January 2014 (Sunday) “Works from early to 10’s of Showa era” — closed
■Period: from 25th January (Saturday) to 2nd March (Sunday) 2014 “Works in the Showa 20’s and at his last years” — ongoing
■Venue: Folk Museum of Ota City, 5-11-13, Minami-magome, Ota-ku, Tokyo
■Contact: TEL: +81-3-3777-1070 FAX: +81-3-3777-1283
You can also visit Watanabe Woodblock Gallery in Ginza, Tokyo, to view and purchase newly reproduced woodblock prints and other “shin-hanga” artists.
]]>What is your New Year ritual? Some like to gather and party and others dare to jump into the ocean (I tried that once!) Recently I like to go to a mountain or a beach with our children. This year I was ecstatic as I was able to be in Tokyo and celebrate the beginning of a new year in a traditional Japanese way.
All over Japan at midnight on New’s Year’s eve — people both young and old —go to a nearby shrine or a temple, get in line, and wait for their turn to ring the large bell there to welcome in the New Year. At temples, townspeople ring the bell 108 times to rid themselves of bad karma. It is a festive, communal affair, with hot sake being served along side soba noodles in a warm broth. The famous large temples make a lot of money from people coming and tossing coins in as they pray, while the the small temples and shrines have events that are organized by local neighborhood groups and are more about the community gathering together.
The one I walked to with my children was a tiny shrine that dates back several centuries near my parents home. My uncle and a band of local men and women had volunteered to set up a large bonfire and offer food and drink to the visitors. After saying hi to my uncle, we stood in line like the others, bundled up against the cold, and waited for an hour for a chance to ring the bell.
I am a skeptic at heart. So I don’t particularly believe in the 108 bad karma (no thank you!) or the religious benefit of the bell ringing. But standing there, with the other Japanese men and women, I thought: This is the way to start off the year right. I suppose it was the community aspect of this event that made me want to participate, spending time with my children, and passing down our traditions, one generation to the next.
In the early hours, after ringing the bell, we hurried home, wishing others “Happy New Years” as we passed by them. My daughter was walking half asleep and I had to pull her along by the arm. The streets were dark and quiet. But occasionally as we approached another temple or shrine, we could hear the deep slow sound of the giant gong echoing through the darkness.
But then, when the sun rose on the first of January and I woke up, the day seemed so bright, and so ordinary. The mysterious aspects of the night before seemed like a dream, or something from a movie. Getting dressed and waking up children, I felt the beautiful extraordinary ordinariness of this first day of the year.
Recently I came across a senryu (a form of haiku poem) by Issa Kobayashi. He seems to capture this feeling well.
A New Year arrives
In utter simplicity
And a deep blue sky
And so here is my wish to my friends and families: I wish all of you many days of extraordinarily ordinary happiness, simple pleasures of daily life, and a lot of blue skies.
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