Designer: Ayumi Shiba | Publisher: Mokuhankan | Date: 2016

Paper size: 28cm by 20cm | Enlargement | Currency: $ / £ / €

Price: $ 105.00£ 85.00€ 97.50 [Currently unavailable]

Description: Ayumi Shiba is one of the young ladies working at Mokuhankan in Tokyo, in multiple capacities: she works in the shop helping explain the prints to visitors; she hosts the Print Parties; and she works as a staff printer, creating work to be sold to customers and subscribers.

But she also moonlights ... as a modern printmaker, and this print is one of her creations - from concept, through design, and all the carving and printing ... herself.

Shiba-san's comments on this print: "Back in old Japan, there was once a tradition known as Koshin. This was a particular day in the old calendar, and it came around once every 60 days. On that day, believers in the tradition would stay awake all night, not daring to fall asleep. Why? The tradition was that during the night of Koshin, three 'mushi' (an imaginary type of being that inhabits the inner body) are free to escape the body and make a report to Taishakuten, a Buddhist deity.

"If this report happened to contain news of evil deeds performed by the person, it was feared that Taishakuten would take disciplinary action ... perhaps even to the extent of the person's life being extinguished. The moral was simple; if you had done things you were perhaps ashamed of, you had better stay awake all night during Koshin!

"So, given the existence of that tradition, we can now imagine our friends the famous monkey trio - See no Evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil - on Koshin eve. A little bit of o-sake, plenty of good conversation ... and of course ... nobody dares to go to sleep!

"And just to make the situation even more 'precarious' ... what do we see at the lower left but a yokai ... just waiting for a drowsy eyelid ..."