Milton (ミルトン)

Designer: John Amoss | Carver: David Bull | Printer: Rei

Paper size: 24cm by 15.5cm | Enlargement | Shipping Code: [M] ? ( Change currency: $ / £ / € )

Price: $ 150.00£ 120.00€ 135.00

   

Description:

[Dave's notes] John Amoss lives in Georgia USA, and sometimes has occasion to drive past the large pulp/paper mill you see depicted here (located in the town of Milton, thus the name). He himself made a woodblock print of this mill a few years ago, and when I saw it, I instantly felt that I too wanted to have a go at using the design. John was game to try something together, and after we discussed what I had in mind for the design, John created a new shita-e (the 'key' outline of the design). (This was all back in 2002 ...)

After I carved the keyblock, John flew over to Tokyo, and the two of us worked out a possible layout for the colours. Once the set of blocks was ready (I carved the entire set while he and his wife went down to Kyoto for a few days), he and I sat down together and began the test printing. He mixed colours and gave general directions; I printed. Because of the large number of colour impressions - 36 in all - it was very difficult to establish a good balance between them, and we had to mix and re-mix, print and re-print. He wasn't a 'dictator', and was quite willing to listen to my suggestions; the final version we settled on reflected plenty of ideas from each of us. (The new version you see here was printed by one of the Mokuhankan print staff.)

But what do you think of it!? This print of course does not depict a 'beautiful' object. But to my mind, the beauty of woodblock prints is not only in the object shown in the print, but in the way that it is depicted. As John wrote when describing his design to me "A paper mill is completely disgusting - both in smell and appearance - but seen in the right way, it can become a thing of terrible beauty." And beautiful this is! Look at the way that the hosho paper absorbs all these multiple overprintings, to give a rich deep texture; look at the way that the dark surrounding areas make the light places glow brightly; look at the building - covered with many layers of thick dark pigment, yet shining in pale moonlight!

The wonderful Japanese traditional woodblock techniques are capable of so much expression, that we can only just scratch the surface of the possibilities in the prints we create. We hope you can see it this way too!

   

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