Woodcut Instructional Film (1968)

This cool 16-minute instructional video from 1968 came through my Google alerts this morning via Crosseyed Cyclops. It shows woodblock artist Lowell Naeve (American, born 1917) developing a multi-colored print from start to finish. Naeve prints western style in that he uses oil-based inks, but he hand burnishes with a wooden rice paddle, mixes his own pigments and uses Japanese paper.

There isn't a lot of info about Naeve online, but apparently he lived in Vermont. Some discussion about him can be found on this page of the Just Seeds blog.

Keiji Shinohara in Alabama (and Online)

Keiji Shinohara, a master woodblock printer who lives in Connecticut and teaches his craft at Wesleyan University, currently has an exhibit on view at Johnson Center for the arts in Troy, Alabama. Happily, the works can be seen online as well.

The intent of the Alabama exhibit is educational as well as aesthetic, to "create a series of works that would visually document the distinctive process of Japanese woodblock printing." To this end, one of the prints is shown with each of the blocks used to create it as well as examples of the successive printing steps.

Keiji Shinohara is also author of one of the best demonstrations of traditional ukiyo-e printing methods on the internet, the Wesleyan Ukiyo-e Techniques site.

Making a Living As an Artist

I'm still thinking hard about my career and wrestling with where to go from here. Freelance illustration has been slow, gallery sales are slow, and the mood among my colleagues in both arenas is fairly gloomy. What I know from past slow periods is that now is the time to focus on marketing, to experiment with new work, to redesign web sites and reach out to past clients as well as potential new ones. All of which can be difficult to do when one is nervous or scared or gloomy.

But boy did I just get a lift! Last week a copy of the newly released book The Artist's Guide: How to Make a Living Doing What You Love arrived in my mailbox just as I was leaving for my four-day vacation, and I've been devouring it. Author Jackie Battenfield is a successful artist herself, has owned and run a gallery, and teaches business development courses and workshops specifically for artists.

First, a word of warning. Do not purchase this book if you're fond of making excuses for why you aren't a successful artist, because once you read it you will have no excuses left. Battenfield covers everything from examining your own hopes and fears to writing an artist statement to finding a place to show to securing funds. With real life examples and interviews scattered throughout, this book is 345 pages of pure career-coaching gold. The tone is positive and upbeat, yet realistic. Battenfield is very clear that being successful in the arts is a difficult task that takes a tremendous amount of work and perseverance, yet she demonstrates both that it is possible and how it is possible. In an act of great generosity Battenfield has withheld nothing, so the book reads like a precious tome of secrets.

I still have two more chapters to read, but already I feel invigorated and inspired. I've made a list of short-term and long-term goals, have ordered some self-promo cards, have revamped my web site, and have had a good conversation with my gallery. What I also know is that this book is one I will turn to again and again, as the huge amount of information could easily take years to fully implement as my career evolves.

Readers of this blog may also want to check out Battenfield's lovely large-scale woodblock prints!

A Retreat

Hamilton Falls, Jamaica Vermont

Lynn and I just returned from a wonderful four-day stay at a cabin by a rushing river not far from Brattleboro Vermont. We always have great vacations together, but this one was especially unusual because we were completely media-free. We had no television, no radio, no computer. I wrote the following paragraphs while we were there:

I'm writing this by hand, on lined 8 1/2 x 11 notebook paper with a ballpoint pen. I'm off the grid for four days, a bit challenging for a workaholic like me, but I'm looking forward to feeling what that feels like. Maybe it won't even be difficult.

I've been thinking a lot about my career lately, as an illustrator and more broadly as an artist. Last week I put together a package of the new Pilgrim prints for my gallery in Seattle, which pushed me to do a more organized and thorough inventory of all my prints, which got me to thinking about the fact that I really have 4 or 5 distinct jobs. My friend Orville Pierson, career coach and author of the book Highly Effective Networking calls this balancing of a number of different jobs or careers a "portfolio career," a double-entendre that I especially love as an artist. So here's my "portfolio:"

1. I create illustrations commissioned for books, magazines, corporate clients and web sites. I used to also work for newspapers, although that work has almost completely dried up. Much of the other work has begun to dry up as well in this recent global recession.
2. I do advertising, promotion, contract negotiation, billing and bookkeeping for my illustration work.
3. I make woodblock prints about topics of my own choosing.
4. I do marketing and promotion for the prints I create, including documenting the work and running my studio.
5. I occasionally teach woodblock printmaking.

No wonder I feel like I'm working all the time!

Most artists I know have a similar portfolio career made up of art-making, self-promotion, teaching and often some sort of "day job." I'd be curious to hear from any readers, especially if you're in the arts, about how you manage to make art, support yourself and your loved ones, plus have time to manage a household, a family, and relationships.

American Bible Story - Final Print

click image for larger view

AMERICAN BIBLE STORY

Japanese woodblock (moku hanga)
Paper size: 14.75" x 16" (37.5 x 40.6 cm)
Image size: 11.625" x 13.75" (29.5 x 34.9 cm)
5 shina plywood blocks
14 hand-rubbed impressions
Paper: Nishinouchi
Edition: 21

I've been thinking for a long time about the way that present-day Americans of every political persuasion call upon "the founding fathers" to justify all sorts of theories about what America is and how Americans should behave. This quoting of early colonists has always reminded me of the practice of quoting the Bible to add legitimacy and authority to one's own ideas and feelings. Then, reading Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's narrative poem about John and Priscilla Alden, The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), I noticed that Longfellow alluded to Bible love stories -- Ruth and Boaz, Rebecca and Isaac -- so I started to work with the idea that the early European settlers of America have become a kind of American Bible story.

The stories I included are pretty obvious -- Noah's ark, Adam and Eve, the pillar of clouds, the city on a hill. I also threw in a nod to Utamaro and his shunga prints. I had very much wanted the serpent to be saying "join or die" as it says in the original woodcut by Benjamin Franklin, but in my research I discovered that there's an artist named Justine Lai who is making extensive use of that phrase in her work. Lai is making a series of paintings that depict her having sex with each of the 44 presidents of the United States. I decided to omit the "join or die" text in my piece so as not to jump on that bandwagon.

Here's how the print looked before I added the keyblock:



And here are the color blocks as they appear after printing:

Small Experiment with White Line Method

Got a little more printed today. I printed the rainbow using the white line method -- cut thin lines to separate the 3 colors, then painted them on with small brushes and took the impression all at once.

I like the registration board so far. This is the second block and it's lining up very well with the first block. No slippage to contend with either. The blocks are staying nice and snug.

A Day's Work

Here's the result of today's printing session. This is all from one block (the block in the upper left corner in the photo from yesterday) using four separate impressions. I'm aiming for an edition of 24.

Got some bad news this afternoon. An art director I've been working with for quite a while got laid off. She's the only client I have now that uses my illustrations consistently on a monthly basis. Unfortunately, we don't know if the magazine will keep using me or not. Ouch. The publishing industry is in deep trouble, or at least in deep transformation.