[Note: this is an archived page - dating from late 1999 - the content is no longer 'active' ...]
Introduction
My name is David Bull, and I am a craftsman living in Tokyo, where I make a living as a woodblock carver and printer. I was so fascinated with the beauty of woodblock prints when I first saw them about twenty years ago, that I knew I had to try making them.
The story of how I eventually succeeded at becoming a woodblock printmaker is told in other places on this web site, but here simply let me note that I am not an artist, but work as a craftsman in the traditional Japanese method - where publishing, design, carving and printing are done by separate people.
For ten years from 1989, I was occupied in producing a set of 100 prints based on the famous Japanese 'Hyakunin Isshu' poets (designed by a long-dead Edo-era artist), but as that project drew near its end (in late 1998), it became time for me to explore ideas for future projects in which I could use my publishing, carving and printing skills.
I had many such ideas, but the one that concerns the page you are reading at the moment was that of publishing a collection of new woodblock prints. When I say 'new', I mean fresh work by contemporary designers from all parts of the world, working in concert with both myself, and with some of the highly skilled carvers and printers who are still working here in Tokyo.
The purpose of this web page is to introduce some concepts of this proposed project, in order that potential designers can assess their interest in it - and of course to allow such people a way to find out what it is that I am looking for, and how to contact me if they are interested in becoming involved ...
Background
This isn't the place for an extended history of Japanese woodblock printmaking, but a couple of things can be mentioned ...
Back in the Edo period, printmaking was all 'cooperative' work - publisher, designer, carver and printer. Opening to the West brought many changes to Japan, and two that affected woodblock printmaking immensely were (1) the introduction of printing presses to handle most commercial work, and (2) the introduction of the concept of the 'artist' as a person who did everything himself, from design to finished product. Traditional cooperative printmaking thus had the guts ripped out of it, and nothing but a tattered remnant survived, mostly producing for tourist markets.
A revival was undertaken in the first half of the 20th century, as the prints collectively known as 'shin-hanga' (new prints) came into being through the efforts of such people as the publisher Shosaburo Watanabe and the artist Hiroshi Yoshida. Many gorgeous prints were produced by this movement, but by the middle of the century it had faded from active life.
Watanabe was also responsible for the production of quite a number of 'cross-cultural prints', in which designs from foreign artists were cut and printed by Japanese craftsmen. Some of these are very beautiful, and all of them are interesting. (Keep reading - a few of them are illustrated on the next page ...)
There yet remains a small group of skilled carvers and printers here in Tokyo. Their numbers grow smaller every year, as older men pass away and very few young ones join, but men with astonishing skills are sitting here waiting for interesting work to come along.
So perhaps it is time for another 'round' of those cross-cultural prints ...
My philosophy on prints and printmaking
I love woodblock prints as objects, not just as vehicles for carrying a particular design to a viewer. In some forms of graphic art, the paper serves merely as a support for pigments making up an image, but in woodblock printmaking the paper becomes a integral part of the image. To my mind, a great deal of the beauty of woodblock prints is 'born' in the materials and tools used. As a designer, you may not want to hear that, but if you have had any experience either making or viewing woodblock prints, you will have discovered that it is true.
In the Japanese tradition within which I work, woodblock prints were generally not considered 'art', but were simple articles of commerce. Of course, their production involved many artistic aspects, from the initial design all the way through the production process, but they were never considered 'high art' in the way that such items are usually considered today.
I try and work to the same ideals. I have been successfully selling my prints for over nine years now by following these concepts:
- The only reason for the existence of a print is its intrinsic beauty. I am not the slightest bit concerned with 'big-name' recognition of the designer.
- The only value a print carries is its value as an object of beauty. Considerations such as how much it will 'appreciate' in financial value over the years are of no interest to me.
- I feel that as very few people in our age have any understanding at all of what a woodblock print is, and of how beautiful it can be, I have a responsibility to educate them in these things.
- I refuse to make 'wallpaper', and thus will not sell 'single' prints for people to take home, hang on their wall, and then ignore for the next ten years ... To this end, I only sell prints by subscription, grouped in sets and stored inside slipcases - to be kept on a bookshelf and only taken out for viewing when the mood strikes ...
- I think prints should be priced as 'reasonably' as possible. By 'reasonable' I mean that collecting prints should be an activity that any normal member of society can engage in, and not just the wealthy. It should not be an 'elite' activity. (To be specific, let me add that my current 'surimono' prints are just about $50(US) each, even those with complicated overprintings and 20+ colours ...)
Although I understand that an 'artist' is a person who has an original vision denied to other people, I believe that in the case of woodblock prints such as those we are discussing, the quality of the final product is a perfect summation of the skills of all four people involved in the cooperative effort - publisher, designer, carver and printer. There is no 'star' - only four equal partners. The time they spend on the work, the skills they bring to it, and the compensation they receive, should reflect this.
I believe that the whole and only purpose of printmaking is the creation of 'multiples', and the dissemination of the 'message' to as wide an audience as possible. Any attempt to limit production artificially, either to maintain a false and dishonest high price for the product, or to avoid hard work by the craftsman, is utterly against the concept of a print. I make no 'limited editions', I never deface my blocks, and my prints never carry edition numbers.
Outline of the proposed project Annual sets of subscription prints
For many years now I have managed to survive by selling my prints on a 'subscription' basis. At the end of 1998, my ten-year project finished, and I began a completely new series in 1999 - the Surimono Albums. For those prints, I use designs from myself as well as from designers of the Edo period. That project is not what this page is about. As that series has established itself well, I now want to consider giving the 'Go' signal to an additional project I have wanted to undertake for some time, the publication of woodblock prints combining the skills of Japanese craftsmen and foreign designers - the project about which you are reading at the moment.
In preparation for this project, I will first put together a 'trial' set of prints. I will select (probably) six designs, and will use my own resources to finance the preparation and production of a set of prints matted and stored in a slipcase. Public announcement of the new publishing venture and display of that first set will take place at one of my annual Tokyo exhibitions (held each January). If public response is favourable, I will then start the production of another set of six prints - if not, the project will quietly fold.
Who will make these prints
Four people will be directly involved in the production of the prints:
(1) As publisher and overall coordinator I will select the designs to be included in each set of prints. Such designs may come to me in a pretty much 'ready to go' form, or they may be at a more conceptual stage; the designer and I will knock them back and forth until something acceptable to both of us 'comes together'.
(2) The designer will of course create the image that will form the basis of each print. Such images may be complete 'workups' done in say, watercolours, etc., or may start with nothing more than pencil sketches showing the idea in a rudimentary form.
Once the design has been finalized and approved by publisher and designer, tracing(s) for carving must be prepared. Depending on the type of image, this may be anything from a simple photographic reproduction, to something produced through labourious tracing and copying. Again depending on the image, this work may have to be done by the designer or the carver.
(3) Once the tracing(s) are ready, the carver will produce the block(s). (The designer may be involved again here, at the point when colour separations are being made)
(4) When the blocks are ready, a printer will pull trial proofs, based on the designer's original sketches, the publisher's directions, and of course the printer's own skills, etc.
These proofs will be inspected by the publisher, and then sent to the designer for comments on adjustment, correction, approval, etc. Further proofs will be pulled as needed ...
When one particular proof meets the approval of both designer and publisher, the printer will be directed to produce the actual 'edition'.
Who will sell the prints
As publisher, I will assume total responsibility for marketing the finished prints. If I am successful in this, I will continue to solicit designs and produce more prints. If I fail, the project will come to an end.
As I discussed above in the 'philosophy' section, I intend to make the prints available to collectors on a subscription basis. I anticipate that the early years of this project will be quite slow going, but as the number of people familiar with what I am doing slowly grows, I feel that it should eventually be quite successful (of course assuming that you produce stunning designs, and that I select well!)
I will at first limit my scope to exhibitions here on my 'home turf' in Tokyo, but expect to widen my range as things progress.
How the contributors will be paid
The three 'hired guns' - designer, carver and printer - will be paid 'up front' for their work. The carver will be paid when the blocks are ready, the printer when he finishes the print run, and the designer when the prints are presented to him for signature (his fee 'per copy' multiplied by the size of the edition). The publisher (me) will then try and get this all back by selling sets of prints ...
Please note that unlike the procedure typical in book publishing, payment to designers will be made 'up front' for copies printed, not copies sold.
Initial printing
I am at present thinking along the lines of a initial print run of 100 copies, but my budget for the first set may not permit this, and I may have to be satisfied at first with only 50 copies each ... (The printers wouldn't be very happy with this, as these men consider a run of 50 copies hardly worth getting their brushes dirty ...)
Complimentary copies, etc.
In addition to the 100 (or 50) copies for public sale, I will ask the printer to run off some additional copies. Each designer represented in any particular set of prints will receive a complimentary set, as will the carver, printer, and papermaker (all of whose names will appear in the margins of the prints). Two sets will also be earmarked for myself for exhibition and promotional use. In the case of a projected set of six prints, a dozen of so extra copies of each design will thus have be printed. I will not pay the designer for these copies - he/she should be happy to receive the sets containing other designers' work, and to contribute to this 'thank you' gesture to the other craftsmen ...
Further printings
As I outlined above, these prints will in no way be 'limited editions'. Prints will carry no numbers, and I have every intention of printing more copies when the initial run has been sold. Of course, the designer would be paid again for any such future copies made - as before, at the time he signs them. The publishing 'life' of any particular print will come to an end when people stop buying it, or when the blocks will no longer produce images acceptable to publisher and designer. The cherry blocks on which all my editions will be made are astonishingly resilient, and if they are allowed to dry and season well between printings, they are capable of many hundreds of copies. (Images containing 'fine lines' may of course not last so long ...)
Signing
At the end of the printing process, the stack of finished prints (which will match the final proof copy exactly) will be sent to the designer for signature.
'Essays'
As I touched on in the earlier section on 'philosophy', I believe that the buyers of these prints should be able to feel some 'personal ' contact with the designers. To this end, each print published in the set will be accompanied by a short 'essay'. If you have the literary abilities to produce this by yourself, this would be the preferred way to go, but if you are not capable of this, then you will be asked to work together with the publisher to create something appropriate.
I am most definitely not looking for 'artspeak' here, nor indeed for anything serious or 'heavy'. I want something more on the line of an anecdote or episode related to the print or the image portrayed ...
Copyrights, etc.
All copyright in any particular design will remain the property of the designer, but as publisher I must of course be permitted free use of the design in publicizing the project, etc. I have no interest in producing peripheral objects like postcards and calendars, etc., but should the project continue for some years, there would presumably be an interesting book at some point ... It is hoped that designers would find this a worthy thing to cooperate on, and would allow their designs to be used.
Projected budget, etc. for first series
Figures based on:
- a set of six prints of approximately 'chu-ban' size (roughly 270mm x 200mm)
- a 'moderate' number of colours per print
- using the finest 'hosho' paper for the editions
- an initial 'edition' size of 100 copies of each print
Numbers in yen - per print ...
Paper 400 Woodblocks (pro rated per print) 300 Print 'sleeve' 200 Case for set (1/6 of 3000 yen) 500 Postage (averaged per print) 500 Employees (for wrapping, shipping, etc) * 400 General administration * 300 Publicity, exhibition etc. * 2000 Designer's fee 1200 Carver's fee 1200 Printer's fee 1200 Publisher's 'profit' 1200 Total 9400
(Note: The figures marked with an asterisk are not fantasy, but are values taken from my many years of experience selling prints by subscription here in Japan ... They are arrived at by taking the total amount I actually expended in each category and dividing by the number of prints that I sold.)
So it seems as though the prints could be priced in the region just below 10,000 yen. That should, I think, make it possible to get a number of subscriptions - if an interesting and attractive set of designs is chosen. None of us would get rich at this; the craftsmen would get a few days' more work to keep them going, you would get a cheque that might pay a month's rent - and you would have the satisfaction of seeing your design turned into a beautiful print. I would have the satisfaction of having brought the whole thing into being - and then one day in the future, when the final sets of the edition are sold, I too would get a small cheque that might pay a month's rent ...
My own 'up front' cash cost, to be spent before any revenue at all will accrue, will be the total of the first four items listed above, plus the fee for designer, carver and printer, all multiplied by one hundred copies, multiplied by six prints in the set ... just about three million yen. Rather a large leap of faith ... I am looking for some very very good designs!
If you are interested ... Contact me here
How to submit potential designs
If you have a web site displaying your work, let me know the URL so I can browse through it and get an idea of what you are up to. If not, then email me to establish contact, and we can discuss having you use snail mail to send me sketches, photos, etc.
It may be the case that quite a number of people will respond to my 'request for designs'. If this does turn out to be so, then it will be inevitable that I will have to respond with a negative answer to most submissions, as the initial set will only contain six prints. Please be prepared for this, and accept it gracefully ...
What sort of designs I'm looking for
On the next page, I try and describe the sort of thing I'm looking for ... and what I'm not looking for! (It has about 280K of illustrations, so it'll take a while to download ...)
I hope you will give this project some consideration. I am quite sure that somewhere 'out there' in the world, designers exist who are capable of producing the work I want to see. Are you one of them?