Tokyo Diary: Flowering plums

I have just returned from a one-month artist residency in Tokyo, Japan. Along with fellow mokuhanga artists Mara Cozzolino, Laura Boswell and Paul Furneaux, we were group participants in ArtsChiyoda3331's joint residency, sharing an apartment and a large studio space in the antique books section of Tokyo--- Jimbocho. It was a paradise for mokuhanga artists; there were antique Ukiyo-e prints in the book shops, Ukiyo-e prints in the museums, and we had contacts and lists of artists, material suppliers and shops, and craftsmen making tools, paper, blocks, sharpening stones and more.  I wasn't sure what I was going to work on-but I wanted it to have a subject that would tie in with my presence in Japan, but still reflect my artistic interests of etegami and woodblock prints.

While all Tokyo and much of Japan was eagerly awaiting the Sakura blossoms--the cherry blooms. I was carrying a drawing I did this time LAST year, of an old, stunted plum tree, in bud and starting to flower.

That drawing was an etegami--a loose sumi ink brush drawing to which watercolors were added and then text.
And since along with the Japanese Quince, the plums are among the first of the blooms to open, they were blooming when I left Florence, and I found them blooming--in lots of places in Japan too.

On my first morning in Tokyo, I found them on the way to Ueno park in a streetside garden,  I found them again, on a scroll in a shop selling calligraphy supplies, and I found them again inside the museum, depicted over and over again.


So I was happy to throw myself into this long and noble tradition.   This is the original drawing/etegami from which I created the resulting print.

I added the background and there is some variation in color and gradation intensity across the 30 print edition. 
"What if I'm not ready?"

Japanese woodblock print: Edition Varie of 30. Printed from 8 Shina blocks,
12 layers of color with watercolor, sumi ink and rice paste on mixed Japanese papers.

Narcissus

Narcissus, 7.5"x10" moku hanga--woodblock print. 2015

When I was in college, I shared an apartment for some time with a young woman who was working to help pay for her education. She worked in the local florists after school and she would bring home some days bunches and bunches of flowers that were a little too old to sell.  It was a good time in my life and the flowers of New England sat on the windowed kitchen in a Main street walk up.
The shelves would fill with Mason Jars and water glasses full of iris and daisies, tuberose and narcissus and we would enjoy the waning color and scent as the flowers slowly faded from a little tired to past withered.  We were bright and full of promise and so it wasn't very long before we had to leave that place and moment for other places and other things.

Thirty years later, I plant bulbs in patio pots and outside under the trees.  In the fields around us are nearly-wild double daffodils, tulips and nodding onions, narcissus, jonquils and hyacinth that will usually start to bloom in late winter or early spring.  And when they bloom, flags of color against the cold-tired fields of grass and mud, I am reminded of the waning flowers, and the kitchen, books and tea, and the woman I knew, and the distant promises we made, and sometimes kept, when we were flowers too.

One Way (Left) Ahead

"One Way" 4" x 8.5" Moku Hanga color woodblock print.

Another go at a finished version.
Hand carved stamp for the little seal.
Still too silver but acceptable.
Still a test print.
Hope to do something bigger so I can really play with the wood texture/imperfections and play with the bigger brushes and looser printing.

I suppose I could play with the metaphorical/political implications and print bunches of these pointing either Left or Right but I'm not feeling very political these days despite the feeling of impending doom.
The Italian government is falling; the Eurozone looks doomed/imperiled;there's a health crisis looming and I'm still making woodblock prints of beetles and road signs?