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

Baren Digest             Thursday, 15 October 1998     Volume 05 : Number 313

----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Steiner <steiner@mbox.kyoto-inet.or.jp>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 22:43:28 +0900
Subject: [Baren 1871] friend, not teacher 

from Richard Steiner/Kyoto
Julio asked (Baren 1868) whether Daniel and I and Dave Stones ever studied
with Tokuriki.  Daniel certainly did and I think I remember reading in one
of Dave's early letters that he did, also.  As for myself, I never studied
under Tokuriki tho I visited his studio often enuf and we went to each
other's exhibitions.  (He even bought three small prints at one of my first
exhibitions in Kyoto about 24 years ago.)  About 10 years ago, his Kyoto
workshop and mine held a huge joint exhibition in Kyoto (Daniel
participated) which was mildly successful.
Tokuriki is a powerful man in Kyoto, politically and culturally, is wealthy
and a member of a very old painting family, the Kano School.  He alone
choose to not go the way of his ancestors but rather to pick up the knife
and baren and make prints.  We all are the better for that decision.  His
work is easily appreciated, makes no demands on the viewer and is
competently carved and printed by his staff. His second wife runs the
business, his children spend his money, but he himself just sits and smiles
and lets the world pass by without affecting him whatsoever.  He is a
pleasant man, always sincerely interested in what you are doing, will give
you information on special techniques or give you addresses of supplies
freely, even loan you tools before you ask. Daniel and Dave S. may have had
different experiences under him, may have seen other faces of Tokuriki, but
for my part, he and I have always enjoyed each other's company,  have never
felt any sense of "competition" or some kind of vague artistic threat or
played the superiority/inferiority games.
But then, there is Takeshi Asano.....
Steiner/Kyoto

------------------------------

From: Marco Flavio <mmflavio@slip.net>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 09:17:07 -0800
Subject: [Baren 1872] Re: Inks ... 

Thank you much for the water-based ink info (that's exactly what I
needed).
Marco Flavio Marinucci

------------------------------

From: "David Stones" <stones@mb.i-chubu.ne.jp>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 02:05:54 +0900
Subject: [Baren 1873] Re: Oliver Statler's book

Dear All,

Thanks Julio for your reference to the book. (Modern Japanese Prints: An Art
Reborn). I've have a copy, bought in 1972, right in front of me now. What you
didn't add though is that this book is a small mine of information WITH colour
and b/w plates of some of the printmakers of another time (the Yoshida  family,
Kiyoshi Saito, Jun'ichiro Sekino, Shiko Munakata etc.) with, in my copy, an
actual woodblock print on the inside of the cover accredited to Koshiro Onchi,
another from an era gone by - he was born in 1891! The intro is by James
Michener. This was one of the first books, besides Tomikichiro Tokuriki's small
edition, I could afford (and one of the very few "full-size" books on prints in
English at the time) so, if anyone has the chance to browse through it, whether
on-line or what ever, just do so. Many of the printmakers have gone of course,
but their work remains for us to see - plus their comments...

I've popped into the Baren Encyclopedia to see if the book is mentioned but it
isn't (unless I scanned through too fast and missed it) so, if Dave B wants to
borrow it and add it to the library (providing the publishers [Charles Tuttle]
say o.k.) something can be done. The ISBN No. is 0-8048-0406-0. Print on.

Dave S

------------------------------

Subject: [Baren 1874] 

Posting duplicated in error

------------------------------

From: Julio.Rodriguez@walgreens.com
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 18:13:57 -0500
Subject: [Baren 1875] re: The book, Koshiro Onchi 

Yes Daniel; it is a great book mostly because of the personal-interview
style in which it  is written. I have a 1956 edition which also still
contains the print you mentioned as a fontispiece ("Impression of a
violinist").

Regarding the current discussion topic of prints place in the fine-art
world; I would like to quote from the book under the chapter on Koshiro
Onchi  (1891-1955) an excerpt that I think could very easily travel thru
time and fit into our current Baren discussion:

"Among the mediums of hanga the one most removed from the brush painting is
the woodcut. A woodcut is best when the chisel in the wood is used most
naturally. The virtue of hanga lies in the certainty that it comes from a
creative process which permits no sham. Unlike brush painting, it allows no
wavering of the hand. It is honest - sham and errors show. Some liberty may
be allowed in the registry but so little that it, like the carving, is a
process which permits no delusion.....hanga rejects the accidental and
rejects ornamentation....and it contains the most constructive process in
the graphic art, the advantage of superimposing pictures. For this reason
hanga is probably the most suitable method yet found for the expression of
modern art, which lays stress on construction" .

------------------------------

From: Julio.Rodriguez@walgreens.com
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 18:18:19 -0500
Subject: [Baren 1876] re: the book..Onchi..correction 

I am sorry, the start of my last posting should read.... Yes Dave S
......(not Daniel).
Thanks also to Richard for the background on Tokuriki.

------------------------------

From: April Vollmer/John Yamaguchi <aprilvollmer@altavista.net>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 20:22:10 -0400
Subject: [Baren 1877] Hanga colors 

In response to David and Mario's color talk: I keep thinking about this
color question, and have been having some private conversations with Sara
Hauser about how to make some color for hanga printing.

I would like to write an entry for the encyclopedia, but am still a bit
vague about how precise the recipes must be! I am using materials available
in the States, too, so it's different from Japan.

The simplest method is to buy tubes of watercolor or gouache and use that
to print. The rice paste (or methyl cellulose) is a conditioner added to
the color on the block, not mixed into it. This gives the printmaker
control over how much to add each time. But watercolor and gouache tubes
are small and expensive, and generally do not have as much pigment as one
would like.

So I make a crude watercolor from pigment ground in water (a pigment
dispersion) plus binder. My quandry really comes when I read Ralph Mayer.
In his Handbook, says each pigment needs a different amount of binder.
(Binder is a mixture of mainly gum arabic for stick, plus glycerine for
solubility, a wetting agent and a fungicide.)

I have been using  a mixture of ready-made gum arabic 3:1 with glycerine
for a binder, mixed 1:1 with pigment.  Plus a squirt of calcium carbonate
in water to make the color more opaque, like gouache. THIS IS NOT
SCIENTIFIC! Recipes I've found refer to dry pigment, to gum arabic in
crystals, to powdered calcium carbonate, grams, ounces, tablespoons...it's
impossible to judge the amounts of things! My crude system seems to work,
but I am hesitant to recommend it to others without more of a handle on the
recipe!

April Vollmer

------------------------------

From: David Bull <davebull@woodblock.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 10:34:59 +0900
Subject: [Baren 1878] Re: 'This is not scientific ...' 

Re: pigment mixing ...

I'd like to respond to April's posting on pigment mixing, but I think
I'll let myself get a bit sidetracked here - something much more
important is here also ...

April wrote:
> I would like to write an entry for the encyclopedia, but am still a bit
> vague about how precise the recipes must be! 

... and then added a sort of 'apology' when describing her method that:
> THIS IS NOT SCIENTIFIC! 

This question of how 'scientific' to be, and of how carefully to analyze
and understand the printmaking process, is a very interesting one.  Have
you read that part of the Tokuno book in the Encyclopedia, where the
(American) editor adds:
>The sheets are moistened with water before the printing
>begins ....   Experiment has shown the amount of
>moisture in this case to be 13.86 per cent. 

Now for anyone who has actually _tried_ woodblock printmaking, that is
one of the funniest statements you will ever read.  Yeah, right.  Point
86 percent.  Not point 87 or point 85.  

Such precision _is_ of course possible.  If you were to take a look
inside one of those giant printing plants where they run off a zillion
copies of National Geographic magazine, you will find that the moisture
in the paper, the humidity in the pressroom, the chemical composition of
the inks, etc. etc. in fact _everything_, is indeed controlled to that
degree.  That's how such astonishing presswork becomes possible.  

But do we really want to walk along that road?  Not I ...

I'm not trying to suggest a mindless and random approach to our craft,
but for my own taste, I much prefer a more non-analytical way of doing
things.  

Can I give you a scientific analysis of the composition of my pigments? 
No.  I try printing with them, hang samples of the resulting prints up
on the balcony for a few years in the direct sunlight and rain, and then
continue using the ones that stand this test.  

(Incidentally April, I found that tube watercolours performed very
poorly in these conditions.  Since then, I've recommended them to
beginners for a relatively easy way to get started, but wouldn't like to
recommend them for anybody doing more 'permanent' work.  But what was
that expression Sheryl used a while back ... YMMV?  Is that it?)


>I would like to write an entry for the encyclopedia, but am still a bit
>vague about how precise the recipes must be!

Please ... let's have that article, and as many others as you can find
time to write. What works for you may or may not work for somebody else,
but it will be another (important) brick in the wall.  

Maybe somebody will read your article and wish that you had given
measurements down to the 3rd decimal place.  If so, then I rather
suspect that he/she is sort of in the wrong business ...  He should be
over at the mint printing money!  Exactly the opposite from what _we_
do, right?

Dave B.

------------------------------

From: Wanda Robertson <robertson@canby.com>
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 19:40:03 -0700
Subject: [Baren 1879] Re: 'This is not scientific ...' 

I, for one, would love to see April's article on her pigments and
mixing style. Scientific or not scientific - her prints are *so* 
beautiful. If I am ever able to produce anything .86 as good, I'll
be happy!

Wanda

------------------------------

From: Cucamongie@aol.com
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1998 07:20:54 EDT
Subject: [Baren 1880] Julio's website 

I have visited Julio's website - and the work is beautiful - I look forward to
seeing the "print gallery" once he gets that up & running -- 

Sarah Hauser

------------------------------

End of Baren Digest V5 #313
***************************