![]() And even if it does turn out to be suitable, we then have to find the next one, and the next one. ![]() Īnd only then - only when one of these blocks is on my carving table ready to cut - will I know whether or not we have selected a good log! If not. What to do? Staffer Lee-san and I need to get out to the wholesale lumberyards, dig around to try and find some raw material that looks like it might work, then figure out how to get it sawn in the orientation necessary for our needs (at 72 degree angles around the log - a pentagonal pattern that will be very difficult to persuade a lumberyard to take on), how to dry it properly (how many years will that take?), then how to dress it down to proper thickness, where/how to find a hydraulic press to bond it to a core, what kind of adhesive to use, how to get the resulting blocks basically planed, then how to get them surfaced to the proper mirror finish. It makes their work so much more difficult! And what makes this whole situation worse is that they've recently seen such nice wood - the old blocks from Doi Hanga - so they have fresh experience of what this stuff should be like! "Is this the best you can find? Really?" The grain patterns show in the print, there are uneven spots here and there, it doesn't absorb the moisture in the proper way. Our young carver Kawasaki-san thinks I've lost my marbles when she sees the blocks I send her to use for our Portraits prints it's wood that would have been suitable for nothing but the stove back when Shimano-san was around.Īnd then when the carved blocks get to the printing staff, they too look at me. So I don't intend this as an insult to him or his business, but the wood we have been receiving from him in recent years has become unbearable. Matsumura-san is just using cherry milled for furniture makers, and their requirements (mostly quarter-sawn straight grain) is diametrically opposed to what the woodblock carver needs. There are now no longer any men with the knowledge of what makes a particular tree suitable for this use. Matsumura-san is not part of that world, and indeed, the pipeline - the supply chain - is now long gone. Shimano-san had a pipeline through the lumberyards up to the guys in the countryside who could search out suitable trees for woodblock printmaking. He gets very little in the way of business for cherrywood it's a sideline for him. His main customers are people making prints as hobbyists, and they are using shina plywood. Since that time, we carvers have been using his blocks, but over time they have become less and less satisfactory. (I wrote about this on this old web page years ago.) As it turned out, it wasn't necessary for me to use the planks I purchased that day, because Shigeru Matsumura (the man who runs 'Woodlike Matsumura') stepped up to the plate and began to sell blocks of a laminated construction pattern - cherry wood facing on a strong plywood core. I knew that I wouldn't find any 'ready to use', but felt that I had to get started on finding some. Within days of hearing that news I was on my way to the wholesale lumberyards in a search for some cherry wood. Late that year he died unexpectedly of stomach cancer, much younger than anybody had expected, and we were all suddenly faced with a real crisis. The background is simple to lay out for you: up until late 1998, I (and all the other carvers in town) were using cherry blocks prepared for us by Shimano Shintaro, who was the last hangi shokunin (block craftsman) in town. Let's start with the easy one - woodblocks. OK, here we go with the next instalment of our update, and as I mentioned in the previous post, we are encountering some major problems with our materials.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |