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Name
of director and the person responding to these questions:
Richard K. Steiner World
Printmakers: Is he an artist as well as a printmaker?
Steiner:
An excellent question. Not every artist, naturally, is a
printmaker. Unfortunately, not every printmaker is also an artist either. I hope
that I am both a printmaker and an artist. That is, I sincerely try to express
my feelings about what I see around me thru my prints with honesty, not fakeness.
I have always said that true art is surely the individual's self-portrait. Contrived
or forced art, or "fashion" art, is not true art, it is commercial business. Date
of founding of the workshop:
1980
What is your workshop like?
There
is no course. When a student enters, instruction begins and lasts as long as the
student continues to participate in classes and exhibitions. I have students who
have been with me for over 10 years. I teach technique mostly, leaving the subject
matter up to the student. I actually have several workshops: the Wednesday evening
one; the Saturday afternoon one; the Kyoto City Deaf Center class; the class at
college; and for advanced students, instruction in my own private studio. Please
give us your personal description.
I am
an American, living in Japan since 1970. I am not tall nor fat; have all my hair;
wear glasses; ride a bicycle very well; eat fish, cooked or raw; do not take any
drugs whatsoever; love life. What
media do you work in?
Only woodblock. I
do pastels for my own pleasure only. Are
you public or private?
What does this question mean?
How many staff do you have currently?
One, who works in the office. She is not a printmaker. Do
you have other activities besides printmaking, such as classes, exhibits, etc?
Many, as mentioned above; I have a workshop exhibition every year, number 19 coming
this July. I have one-man shows in various parts of Japan. Are
you print publishers, as well?
No
Do
you sell prints?
Of course. How
did your workshop originate? Tell us the story.
I
came to Japan and almost immediately began to study printmaking, as a hobby. I
fell in love with the medium and decided to become a teacher. I studied for 10
years, then received my artist's name and teacher's license. In 1980, and began
to teach. My first, main teacher, a Japanese, was one of the best carvers in the
country, but a terrible printer. That didn't matter for his style, however. But
I wanted to be a slightly better printer, so after 1980, I studied occasionally
from another famous printmaker near Tokyo.
My printing skills improved
a lot, but printing is a never-ending study. I am still learning. As new techniques
come forth, I try them and see if I like them or not. Printing is much more demanding
than carving. One can learn carving fairly quickly, but it takes years to become
a good printer.ç
If you had to start again, what would you do differently?
Nothing.
How has the workshop evolved from the early days?
I can teach better, having gained experience. I am always trying to improve,
however. I teach Japanese and foreigners, in Japanese and English. As time has
passed, I have bought better equipment and tools, making them available to the
students. As I hear of new techniques, I try them and teach them.
Is your workshop unique or different from the others?
In what way?
Different,
because I am not a Japanese. So, I think and speak and act differently. I also
let the students have their own ideas, a very non-Japanese approach. And, just
as I received an artist's name and license, so I, too, give them to deserving
students who want to become teachers themselves. As far as I know, my workshop
is the only one in Japan that maintains this tradition. What
is your method of working with artists?
We have collaborative exhibitions occasionally, that is all.
Who are some of the artists with whom you've had the
most successful (on all levels) collaboration? Tell
us a bit more about the most interesting ones: incidents, anecdotes...
In Japan, unlike in the West, artists usually do not collaborate. However, I once
had a Two Workshop Exhibition with the late Tokuriki, a friend. It was successful,
in that many people came. But while my students cooperated with Tokuriki, his
students wouldn't cooperate with us, out of pride of being students of a world
famous printmaker. It was my task to choose the frame style, but they ignored
my choice, and so the exhibition has a very amature appearance. It didn't bother
them, but it bothered us. We never had another joint exhibition with any other
group after that. Do
you work with special papers? Tell us about them.
Of
course. All are Japanese hand-made or machine-made papers, varying in quality
and ease of use and price. Right now, I have my favorites, but later, I may change
to other papers. There are so many fine papers being made in Japan, it is hard
to choose the best one. How
do you feel about the current moment in printmaking? Are you optimistic or pessimistic?
Why?
I don't know what the current moment
is in printmaking. However, in 1997 I made the Kyoto International Woodprint Association
(KIWA) because I knew that all over the world there were woodblock printmakers,
and I wanted to see their works. Every year for three years we invited as many
as we heard of to send in prints. This became too much me and my students to do
every year, so we changed the exhibitions to every three years. The response has
been tremendous. We are so happy even though we have been very overworked. Every
print received goes into the KIWA Collection after the shows, to be preserved
forever. We also take the exhibition on tours of Japan, and hopefully to other
countries later. What
do you think are the major issues the community of printmakers needs to address?
I have no idea. Do
you have norms for the editions done in your workshop? What are they?
As a rule, we do not do editions. It is not a Japanese tradition.
And personally I hate the idea. If I make a really nice, pleasing print, I want
the whole world to own a copy of it. I would be a fool to limit it to only 30,
50, 125 or whatever. I would be taking money out of my pocket and throwing it
away, in a manner of speaking. Woodblock prints are inexpensive in the first place;
so why should I limit a nice work to only 10, when I can sell a thousand and earn
that much more income. Also,
in truth, I and my students give much of our work away, to friends; as wedding
presents; to people who greatly appreciate a piece but who can't afford it; to
relatives; to organizations' fund-raising events who want to raise money for some
worthy cause, and so on. We can make more prints so easily. What is the meaning
of sitting on a stack of prints waiting for the right rich man to come along and
buy one? It is crazy. We are creating in the medium of multiples; we can make
as many works as we care to. Why should only 50 people in the world have a print?
Why can't Mr. or Mrs. 51 have one? It isn't fair.
What do you consider the numerical limit for a true limited
edition?
145,880,000,000. What's
the best thing about having a printmaking workshop? And the worst?
Best: having your own place to work in, and to have others
come and study in. Worst: when too many people come at the same time. Regarding
the marketplace, who buys limited-edition fine-art prints?
I
have no idea. What
do you think might be done to make art buyers more aware of the true fine-art
print?
Educate them. Destroy the concept
of a limited edition having more value than an unlimited. Buying art for its own
sake, and not as merely a financial investment. What
is your opinion of the current upsurge of digital fine-art prints?
There have been several printmaking mediums existing alongside
each other for many generations now. Woodblock, zinc etching, lithography, silk
screen. Why not have a new one, digital? Can
the traditional hand-pulled print "coexist peacefully" with the digital print?
Of course.
What are your principal sources of information about
the world of printmaking?
Newspapers, magazines, web sites, others'
exhibitions, word of mouth, books. How
do you buy your supplies? Local suppliers? Mail order? Internet?
Locally. In Japan we can get all our tools, wood, paper,
pigments. Whom
do you consider the most relevant, best printmakers at work today?
Can't answer that given the brief space of this letter.
It would require a long magazine article, which I won't write for a while. First,
I want to do some summer workshops abroad, in The States, for example. I want
to learn more about the world printmaking scene. I want to hold the KIWA Exhibitions
a few more times. Then, I will be really able to answer this question. How can
anyone know who are the best printmakers in the world, unless they have seen their
prints? Well, that is just what I intended to do by making KIWA. From the next
exhibition, in 2002, we will produce a catalog. It will be a window on current
printmaking around the world. When we have build our museum, it, too, will be
a source of current information on printmaking and printmakers worldwide. Where
do you think printmaking will go in the next 10 years?
It
will continue to grow. Teachers like me, like Kurosaki, like the late Tokuriki
and the late Asano, like the late, super Toshi Yoshida, like the sincere students
of all these teachers who go on to become teachers themselves, they all will continue
to turn out more and more printmakers worldwide. Last summer, I had a printmaker-teacher
from the Basque area in Spain. She came to me to study for two months traditional
Japanese water-based printmaking. She is now back in Spain, teaching her students
woodblock printmaking. The future is wide open. I am very optimistic, and very
happy to be a part of it all. Many thanks.
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