Ritchie's Video 'N Print, Division of Emeralda Works, 500 Aloha #105, Seattle, WA 98109

Janet Yang prints hanga:

Pioneering Living Prints in Japanese-Woodcut

Featuring Janet Yang, artist and designer - 1980

Transcription Copyright 1993 By Bill H. Ritchie, Jr.

Summary: Content and form are wedded by attention to details beyong the eye in this videotape of an artist demonstrating creative Japanese woodcut. The affinity between wood and water is central to using watercolor for printing. 4380 Words. 19741 Characters. 6 Pages. Originated: 1993 Feb 4. Updated 12/30/03 . VTYANG.HTML

Bill Ritchie, producer and narrator:

Hello, this is Bill Ritchie for "Living Prints," the video tapes I made for print making studies. You're about to hear the soundtrack for Janet Yang prints hanga, the 26 minute color video from Ritchie's Video Library and Archives, made in 1980.

Janet is an artist and designer who uses Japanese style wood block print making. It's called sosaku hanga, which is the inventive print making style she adopted from the contemporary wood block prints of Asia.

The video was made as a demonstration which was given to beginner students. Now you may not be able to hear the questions from the students, but you should be able to understand the material from the answers that Janet and I have given. Now here is "Janet Yang Prints Hanga."

Bill Ritchie: This is Janet Yang, some of you may have already met her, but for the sake of the video recording for people in the future, this is Janet Yang. Janet has come under the Ford Matching Fund, that the Art school here has at the UW.

Janet now is teaching at the Factory of Visual Arts and was a teaching assistant before she left Cornish, where she was working at a Bachelor Degree there. According to her records was at the University of Chicago . . . is that . . . did I get that right?

Janet Yang: Yeah.

Bill Ritchie: Okay, and I might mention, too, that this class - the recording of this class - is made possible because of the Beginning Wood Cutting class, with Mr. Spafford, the instructor.

I was approached by Janet months ago about doing a demonstration like this and it happened to dove-tail with a need that I felt to reintroduce the Japanese wood cut into the curriculum because woodcut classes taught less frequently than it was. And because the Japanese woodcut has not been such a common part of University's faculty offering or curriculum. ? As far as I know that is one of the main things that Janet did at Cornish - is that correct? Why don't you tell - because I have seen both oil base prints and water base prints - so why don't you comment on the relation of those two because that's a distinction that we don't talk about much around here - or very much here.

Janet Yang: In my mind it ties very much between the differences between Oriental culture and the Western culture. Oriental cultures have been printing on wood with water for thousands of years. Western cultures have been printing with oil-based pigments - from metal plates, wood, stones - for relatively a few hundreds of years.

This seems very important to me that wood is essentially made of cellulose. Paper is essentially held together and made of cellulose. So only elements we are introducing into the printing system of pigment and water. The water disappears. What you have is two - not only compatible - but essentially like elements, paper and wood pressed together with something else in between them. And that what puts the picture on.

It's so easy that it's dumb. When you come down to it. (smiling) All I am doing right now is trying to fill this block with water. It has been printed before. There seems to be a point in a woodcut - in printing a woodcut - where the water and the pigment reach saturation in the surface of the wood and then every time you add more water and more pigment, only that amount that you've added comes back up on to the paper.

That there is actually some control in what these pictures print like one after the other, after the other. Once the blocks been set, it has a tendency to repeat itself with fair amount of accuracy.

(A class member: "Like warming it up?")

Janet Yang: Yeah, its exactly that. It's getting it warmed up.

I brought several sheets of paper to print today. Hopefully they would come out some what one to another I assume the first one would probably be a wetter impression with the paper just gotten out of being under pressure so its got a lot of moisture in it right now. As time goes on it would be evaporating. So I think the wood block will take in its critical amount of water as I go. Then it should regulate itself fairly well.

Bill Ritchie: I didn't see you put the ink in the . . .. What are you using, what water color?

Janet Yang: I'm just using water colors and glycerin. This one is a wetting agent and it tends to hold the evaporation times a little.

When you are printing the oil base pigment on these blocks essentially you are putting an opaque layer on top of the cut shapes. When you're printing it with water from these blocks your bring the printing material actually up from under the immediate surface of the wood, so it comes up like capillary action and the grain has to be there.

Bill Ritchie: So you can exaggerate grain by choosing to use, lets say fir, or . . ..

Janet Yang: Mahogany. Mahogany is good. The open grain wants to carry a lot more water in the grain pattern. So that does print much more strongly.

Bill Ritchie: I think with oil base the object is to make the whole wood surface perform uniformly.

Janet Yang: One of the aspects that always strikes me is how integral the system is - water and cellulose. Water and wood, there's already water in wood. Water and paper, there is already water in paper - in making it damp. So that all you're doing is plugging into the built-in structure of the products you're using. Otherwise when you're using oil-based paint you're literally putting a foreign material on top of something.

All I am doing really right now is spreading the color over the parts of the block that I would like to have printed. I'll have to go back and probably take several - print over this several times - to pull the desired amount of pigment up and on to the paper.

Because you are working with capillary action and the grain of the wood, you have to try to control from the direction of the brushing after you spread the color. Yet you pull water out of the wood surface and put it back down depending on where you want it.

Bill Ritchie: We have to bear in mind that the way Janet is using the medium is as the artist would use the medium. But the medium has been brought from production printers in Japan. If they were doing production prints where they were suppose to print 250 to 700 sheets a day, they have a [larger] brush this size and they'd be, they would have printed fifteen in the time its taken her just to ink one block. Plus they might have divided - if she's willing to color divisions and nuance - they would have broken those up to three or four different blocks. You have to make that distinction. I've met people who were working with this medium who think nothing of printing one in a day.

Janet Yang: I'm one of them.

There's another aspect to that too. It's way the blocks are cut is real important and the first concern. You have to cut them in a manner that's suitable to the way you plan to print them; and the way that the production blocks were cut was very straight-forward. They used to make etching engravings and lithographs, too: You get an outline and cut it. You put the outline on otherwise different wood blocks and cut the other parts for the other colors, everything is cut fairly deep, so that there is little margin for error or change as possible.

(Inaudible question from a member of the class about how to get very thin lines.)

Janet Yang: Either that or you have to cut them better. Or you have to ink like I am with this little brush. That's another aspect about it.

Bill Ritchie: Your thinking of the traditional Japanese print the hair [in the image, such as portraits], things like that, is that hard wood? It's usually cherry, a specific grade of cherry a specific part of the cherry tree and cut by a master. Printed in accordance to the master's cutting. You can do the same thing, but you have to use very sharp knives, very hard wood, very stiff opaque black ink and you can get the details.

(Inaudible question from a member of the class, again about fine lines and details.)

Bill Ritchie: Does have to be cut closely. If your inking with a brayer it has to be a hard brayer and your paper has to be a thin paper. Just variables up and down the road, but they are all feasible. That technique is usually left to the wood engravers, you know.

(Question from a member of the class about the difference between wood engraving and woodcut.)

Bill Ritchie: Well basically the difference as I understand it is that wood engraving is done on the end-grain of wood. The wood cut is done on the plank, in other words the side that we usually see.

Janet Yang: There's another, I think there's another specific difference in that is that wood engraving is literally an engraving. They use a V-shaped solid tool that cuts a very strong V-shaped line. There are V-gouges for wood cut, but they are relatively new in the tradition of this style of wood cuts. V-gouges were invented in the last century-and-a-half. It's an adaptation from other processes, essentially.

I think your point, Bill, about all the factors having to link up is real important with any kind of printing - oil bases or water based.

The first application of pressure, I tend to do very very lightly to try to make it a gentle contact between the paper and the wood and begin the flow of the color up from the wood and into paper.

Bill Ritchie: What's your paper's name?

Janet Yang: This is shiro torinoko. It's a full size, its a little bit larger than this print behind me. The paper that's used for shoji screen doors - when they're not using fiberglass which is what they use mostly now.

This paper has a very large percentage of wood pulp in it's content. That's desirable for the effects of this paper gives because it adds smoothness and a certain kind of density to the paper. Traditionally, I guess, the hand-made Japanese paper, which is the paper that most people are most interested in, are hundred percent kozo-type fiber or 100 percent of other fibers - mulberry fibers.

(Question about wood grain showing in the print.)

Janet Yang: They're harder papers. There's an aspect of this it seems the softness of the short fibers in the wood pulp that they add to it takes the color a little bit more, accepts it better.

(Question about whether the wood pulp will result in "burning" the paper.)

Janet Yang: No, it's de-acidified pulp.

Bill Ritchie: I understand most of the papers that are imported in quantities to the US are 25 to 50 - even 75 percent wood pulp. That is to say that it is deacidified to an extent you don't have to worry about it changing color. But it is an organic material and color changes are part of life. Art works on paper - well this kind of gets to a whole other subject - they're really not meant to hang everyday all day for ten years on a wall. They're sort of made to take out occasionally and put back, and that may be treated a little differently than a fresco or a mosaic. We hear a lot about the permanence in the papers and even newsprint can be made to last if it's cared-for properly, so I think that we tend to expect more of paper nowadays then we really have a right to in the last analyses.

Janet Yang: Yeah, I think that the contemporary threshold of vision has added a lot factors to this kind of stuff. The fact that an awful lot of world can see through microscopes now either photographically or in person. Plus a lot of people look a lot more closer to a number of factors that I don't think particularly were noticed in the past. We ask a lot of these things. The interesting fact is that they can give back an awful lot.

Bill Ritchie: It appears to me that what she has to do now - since she can't take the paper off - well she could - but she's risking loosing her registration. She folds it back, she has a little weight there. Is that a chicken?

Janet Yang: Yeah.

Bill Ritchie: A little lead chicken of some sort?

Janet Yang: Yes, its a brass chicken.

Bill Ritchie: The little brass chicken holds it, so she can ink half the block. If I'm correct she is going to print that and then she's going to ink the other half of the block just keep trading sides. Is that right?

Janet Yang: Yes.

Bill Ritchie: You can ink a block with a water color brush - anything. When I learned to wood block I guess I wanted to use the same thing as the Japanese used and not take any chances on not being able to do it, because I didn't have the right brush. But I have watched a lot of people use anything from shoe polish brush to house painting brushes. I've seen people use those sort of nylon . . . you know, those brushes that look like a square with a little rug on the bottom. I've seen everything. It all sort of works.

Janet Yang: Can someone open the window back there for me, the lights are kind of hot.

Bill Ritchie: Where did you buy your baren?

Janet Yang: In Japan.

Bill Ritchie: Did you go there, or did you send for it?

Janet Yang: I sent for most of my equipment. I visited Japan before I got involved with this style and print making and I happened to see the production line at the "national art house" in Tokyo, where they demonstrate all traditional Japanese hand-crafts. They had a printing studio set up there where they make the reproductions of master works.

They take a photo reproduction and cut a key block and re-cut all the famous Japanese prints that everybody is buying over and over again. They're just re-cut when they wear out.

What I think what I am going to do is to leave this impression fairly faint. The next one should come up with more color.

See what we have so far. Okay that would be my key block. I try to design this to work some what like a traditional wood cut.

(Viewer asks her to say again what the block is.)

Janet Yang: This would be a key block and the colors go on separate blocks behind it and the way you cut the other blocks is to put an impression of the key down on the wood block.

Bill Ritchie: Would you hold it to the camera for just a second. He'll make a little electronic recording.

Janet Yang: Okay, now there is a second plate involved. And this is handled various ways for different prints. Some people print all the key blocks first, put them away and dampen them, print out all of these. It's very much a matter of personal preference at this point.

(Questioner asks how she will control the color on the next printing.)

Janet Yang: Remember what I was saying about setting the block? That's the only control I have here. After I've been printing enough times in the same patterns over and over, that's where the colors going to absorb and that's where it comes back up.

(Question: May I ask you how you clean your brushes?)

Janet Yang: Long hours under running water. I use shampoo on them sometimes, too. They're just brushes. They're just hair. I mean you clean them just how you would clean hair.

Bill Ritchie: I've heard that Ivory, there's something like Ivory soap a very gentle shampoo is better than "Head-and-Shoulders" or "Lava" or something like that.

Janet Yang: They don't have dandruff, so there's no big problem. (laughter)

Bill Ritchie: I think - I keep trying - I feel like I'm trying to make - what is it? A "peacemaker" between the concept of the edition-ed print as an exact multiple as coming from the industry, so to speak. Like every Ford has to be interchangeable with the other Ford. The artistic, what she calls it sosaku hanga, is again - I've always had trouble with this - what the term really means is the equivalent of the contemporary print in our language.

Janet Yang: What it really means is really inventive print making. The whole idea of sosaku hanga revolves around getting out of the traditions of Ukiyoe printing which was the reproductive printing. The only rule was there are no rules. I would amend that in saying that the only rule is that the nature of the materials your working with.

(Questioner asks if she always uses the top sheet of paper between her baren and the printing paper.)

Janet Yang: If I want to use my baren for any length of time, yeah. It's just that when it gets wet it sticks to the paper. With the harder Japanese papers there's really not a whole lot of need to use it.

(Question about the small pad of carpet she occasionally wipes her baren across.)

Janet Yang: That has a hair oil on it, just to smooth the passes in the baren. It lubricates it.

(Question about what kind of oil is used on it.)

Bill Ritchie: Camellia.

Janet Yang: It's a vegetable oil.

Bill Ritchie: It's sold where the hair oils are sold in Uwajamaya [a store in Seattle]. It's camellia oil. I'm not sure what the advantages are, I was told that volatile oil. It evaporates and the greasiness is lost. Whereas Vitalis . . ..

Janet Yang: The petroleum distillates are another question. (Laughter)

Bill Ritchie: I see, I thought you were going to pull the color out of that incision.

(Question whether this is "intaglio" printing would be possible.)

Janet Yang: Yeah, you can. What you have to do is drive the paper into the incisions under pressure.

(Question inaudible.)

Janet Yang: Um hm. You can print an etching with a full-strength baren. Barens come in various grades of knotting and their thickness in cord. From what I understand, the heaviest grade of professional baren is quite capable of producing etchings. Which is a lot of pressure.

(Question, "So are they massive and heavy to hold?)

Janet Yang: They're heavier than these, but no, they are not a whole lot bigger.

Bill Ritchie: There is an analogy, too, I want to build on what she said about the "many points." I remember, some years ago, that spike heels that women were wearing were a real problem, because they were poking holes every where they went. All in the linoleum was pock-marked with these little holes from spike heels. The airlines people were going crazy because the holes were going through the floors in the airplanes and things like that.

Well, it illustrates that a woman that weighs a hundred pounds can exert 450 pounds per square inch on a spike heel. It's just the way it works out. When Janet - you know - it looks like she hardly doing a thing, she might be exerting - if the arm pressure were maybe - it might be you know 20 pounds per square inch. But by the time that little knot or bump in the baren gets - it you should come up here an feel the face of that baren - by the time its concentrated on one of those little points, her 20 pounds of pressure is multiplied to 60 or 80 pounds.

Janet Yang: That's what allows the larger barens to give up to 2000 pounds per square inch. If you put a two-hundred pound man behind a heavy duty baren.

(Question, "Janet, how do you go about working two different colors together?)

Janet Yang: They are all going at the same time. Then I brush the edges into each other. That's a fairly traditional Japanese style that I just adapted to this particular format.

(Question: "In other words, you're inking the black discreetly, then you're taking another brush and bringing the two together?)

Janet Yang: At the same time that I am pulling, in a sense, the excess water out I'm blending the colors.

(Question, "I see. Do you do the same thing with the big one [on the wall] as you do with these, in other words, pull part of it, look at what you're doing, make adjustments, put it back - so obviously you could spend a whole day making one print.)

Janet Yang: Um hm.

(Time passes, she is doing the last stages. Someone asked what the powdered material is that she uses in the last step.)

Janet Yang: That goes on at the end of this picture. It's a reflective material, its called "pearlescence" it's used in auto paint.

This picture is the first one - well not really the first one - it's fairly related to my mind that second large one there. I've been very interested in Chinese prints - for a long time. I don't want to make Chinese drawings, so I have been looking for a way to integrate certain aspects the esthetics of Chinese prints from wood into my own work. This print is called Chinese Willow.

(Question is asked about the purpose of the pearlescence she dusted on.)

Janet Yang: See the way the light is reflecting off of it?

(Question inaudible.)

Janet Yang: I don't think so. Certain theories?

(Comment inaudible.)

Janet Yang: Like I said. (?)

Bill Ritchie: The air is just filled with sparklies right now, I'm probably breathing sparklies.

(Question about control?)

Janet Yang: Must be it looks good.

Bill Ritchie: Now what is the pearlescence sticking to, just the ink?

Janet Yang: The ink and the moisture of the paper. It pretty much coats the whole sheet.

(Question about drying time effects.)

Janet Yang: No.

Bill Ritchie: You associate that with Chinese.

Janet Yang: No its not just the pearlescence its the esthetic aspects of these kind of pictures that I was referring to. And that's it. It would look different when it's dry.

(Question about how it will look when dry.)

Janet Yang: The paper shrinks down and flattens out, and hardens out, a little bit. The color may look slightly fainter. That's about it. Has a very different presence.

Bill Ritchie: What's the title of the work on the wall behind you? I think I missed that if you said so.

Janet Yang: That's just called Large Fronds. I've been doing a cycle of prints based on palm fronds for several years now.

Bill Ritchie: You were in Hawaii, right?

Janet Yang: I was born in Hawaii.

Bill Ritchie: Oh, that's right.

(Remark: "I'm so glad you mentioned that, that's a completely different aspect to that print when you hear it . . . that's great!)

Bill Ritchie: Well, again, thank you Janet. I'm sure the people here are going to have more questions. Are you available now for about another half hour? Would you mind keeping the microphone on and I'll . . .. (Tape ends.)

You have heard this sound track for the video tape "Janet Yang in Prints Hanga" a twenty-six minute color video from Ritchie's Video Library and Archives. I produced and edited this program from a class demonstration, when I was a professor at the University of Washington in 1980. Janet is a noted artist and designer in the Northwest. This video is part of the Living Prints Series, available for home use and institutions. For more information regarding sosaku hanga and other print making processes, I invite you to contact me, Bill Ritchie. You may write or call. My address is 500 Aloha #105, Seattle, WA 98109. My email is ritchie@seanet.com Thank you for listening.

The End