Nom de Plume

Once again proving I am out of control, here are three prints I just had framed. BTW, I wasn’t sure if the Toshi Yoshida was pencil signed; it is.

Mom also sent me this Sekino bijin-ja for my birthday. Apparently, it was my grandfather’s favorite print. Hmmm, wonder why …

Also, Steve got me all sorts of great gifts for my birthday, but by far the best was Helen Merritt’s Guide to Modern Japanese Woodblock Prints. I am thrilled with it. On the other hand, you know you’re getting old and boring when you start requesting reference materials for gifts.

So those two Koitsu prints I bought off eBay? Stupid. They are completely glued to backing.

I am now performing surgery.

I’ve been a little out of control lately.

In addition to the Sekiguchi, I’ve also bought two Koitsu prints (either a really smart eBay buy or a really stupid one–I won’t know until I get them), a strange little bijin-ja that I know absolutely nothing about, and a Toshi Yoshida (a lifetime strike, but don’t know whether it’s pencil signed or printed).

And it occurs to me that I haven’t posted everything I’ve had reframed or bought. So here goes.

Reframed the Saito. The picture doesn’t do it justice. (Actually, none of my pictures do justice to the prints. Bear with me.)

Recycled the Saito frame on this Kiyoshi Nagai print.

Reused the existing frame on my beloved hot spring print, but added conservation materials to the inside. It’s on the wall next to my side of the bed, and I love looking at it.

Reframed the Narazaki (Nazaraki? I always mix it up) print. This was a hard, hard print to frame, and I’m still not completely sure I like it. Covering the margins seemed like a good idea at the time — it was very difficult finding a mat color that didn’t make it look weird — but I think I’m regretting it.

This lovely Seiichiro Konishi print has not been reframed at all — though it was probably framed in the seventies and needs its innards replaced with conservation materials.

There isn’t much information available about Seiichiro Konishi. If anyone knows more about him than is available on artelino, or can read the following, please let me know!

**UPDATE July 2009–Found this print on Artelino. It’s called Shinbashi in Kyoto.

I’ve finally managed to articulate what it is I love about Japanese shin hana and sosaku hanga prints. Looking at them induces (in me at least) that sense of being nostalgic for the very moment you’re in. Just like autumn.

In any case.

Picked this lovely Sekiguchi print.

Another eBay purchase.

The watanabe “sausage seal” on the right hand margin dates it to between 1929 and 1942. I haven’t seen any other prints online with the bottom set of characters on the left hand margin(as below). As far as I can tell, using the wonderful Shin Hanga Date Translation, it reads, “Made 17 March, 1933.” The print was originally created in 1932. I could be reading this wrong, but if anyone out there is more knowledgeable than I am (not hard), could you verify the date? Also, does anyone have any idea what the top set of characters is? HELP!!!

Just in case you’re curious, here’s a dedicated blog.

The first picture is of animal prints in the snow. Which makes one wonder whether winter activities are also conducted in the buff.

Sounds cold.

Harry is a delightful woodblock printmaker who lives in England. I saw some of his prints online at baren forum, and then visited his site directly. I really, really like a lot of this–and so I asked whether I could buy some of his work. And lo and behold! I’m Harry’s first customer across the pond.

This is what I purchased:

And this is what Harry, bless the man, sent me along with it:

Aren’t they lovely?

For those of us living in South Seattle, good picture framing services are hard to come by without major traveling. I had been using the Columbia City Art Gallery’s services, but they have very limited hours — and the guy was never there during the four hours a day they are open. Then I stumbled upon The Mitered Corner, which is owned and operated by a delightful woman named Terry (whose mother does the books). Terry is a real gem–not only does she do beautiful work, but she’s also great about making recommendations about what will look good. When I dropped off four prints two weeks ago, I spent an hour there chatting, looking and frames and matting, and chatting some more. And here are the results:

Terry also recycles matboard; instead of throwing away the scraps, she precuts them into various sizes and sells them for a couple of dollars each. This was a godsend, with all those woodblock Christmas cards; I framed a good number of them — complete with conservation matting — for a very modest price.

At risk of sounding like a blogomercial, I am so pleased and can’t recommend her highly enough.

This is for Barbara.

Mother is slowly giving me all the Japanese prints that her parents collected in Japan. Here’s the latest, another Sekino.