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Heather Webb, Executive Director of Open Studio, Toronto, introducing Jose Roca at the Printopolis Opening Reception.

Elizabeth Forrest and April Vollmer gave mokuhanga demonstrations for the conference, and organized an exhibition at the Japanese Paper Place.

"Beyond Mokuhanga" show at Japanese Paper Place showing April Vollmer, Eva Pietzcker, Elizabeth Forrest, Jacomijn den Engelsen, and Dariuz Kaca

the exhibition with Dariuz Kaca and Tuula Moilanen's work

The show focused on contemporary artists who use mokuhanga

Gallery view with Mike Lyon and Daniel Heyman, with Elizabeth Forrest's folded woodblock on pedestal

MIKE LYON, USA Grass 2.2, 2010 Mokuhanga (wood cut from 17 cherry blocks), pigments in rice paste on Hosho by Iwano Ichbei, 22.5 X 72 inches An American working in the United States, for decades Lyon has been a serious student of various aspects of Japanese art and culture. His works obviously conflate both Japanese and Western artistic traditions. -John Teramoto, PhD, Curator of Asian Art Indianapolis Museum of Art

MIKE LYON, USA Grass 2.2, detail The ability to evoke auroras of the past in contemporary imagery imparts to works additional depth that resonates beyond the immediate presentation of form and meaning. As beautiful modern images, Mike Lyon’s indigo woodblock prints make no pretense to antiquity. Yet they certainly are in possession of elements that impart to them aspects of timelessness. -John Teramoto, PhD, Curator of Asian Art, Indianapolis Museum of Art

Sigrid Blohm of the Japanse Paper Place, is an expert in all types of washi.

APRIL VOLLMER, USA Delirious Birds & Bees, 2007 Mokuhanga on Eichizen washi, 26 x 26 inches For the last several years I have played with variations on the kento registration system, creating mandala like images by printing blocks repeatedly in different orientations. Delirious Birds & Bees incorporates ten blocks borrowed from four earlier prints to create a new autobiographical image. It was the centerpiece for a 2007 exhibition at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Sakura Matsuri.

APRIL VOLLMER, USA Flying Gyre, 2008 Mokuhanga on Eichizen washi, 26 x 26 inches These prints represent the most ambitious examples of the rotating geometry I have been working with since 2004. Flying Gyre has limited colors, and is about creating space from pattern. It was made by printing three simple blocks multiple times to make patterns of birds disappearing into the zenith.

DANIEL HEYMAN, USA When I Saw My Son, 2006/7 Mokuhanga printed sumi and gouache ink on Japanese washi Page from artist book

DANIEL HEYMAN, detail “When I Saw My Son,” is the portrait of an Iraqi victim of torture who I met in Amman in 2005. There I listened to his testimony of abuse as he explained to American lawyers his arrest at the moment a bomb went off outside his home. Two of his sons were killed in the explosion, 9 and 11, one decapitated by the bomb. I completed a water colour during this interview, painting the man’s words as I heard them translated. This became the initial design for this print.

DANIEL HEYMAN, When I Saw My Son, 2006/7 (book) Mokuhanga printed sumi and gouache ink on Japanese washi The artist’s book from which, “When I Saw my Son” was taken.

DANIEL HEYMAN, USA Bark, 2010 Mokuhanga printed gouache ink on Japanese washi The second print “Bark” is more recent and far less grim. It represents the bark of a pine tree. For over 15 years I have been fortunate to spend a part of each year on Cape Cod, and am constantly amazed by the range of beautiful natural environments found there. This summer I was enamored of the bark of the pine trees that grow in the woods near the cottage we rented.

DANIEL HEYMAN, USA Bark, detail I love the strength of these trees, the deeply fissured textured of their bark.

Elizabeth Forrest and Sigrid Blohm at the Japansese Paper Place Gallery

EVA PIETZCKER, Germany Coast, 2009 Mokuhanga Woodblock Print, 26.5 x 9.5 inches I am working exclusively with moku hanga. I am cutting in solid elder and am printing onto Japanese washi. The images of my prints come from landscapes. By working with simple, foundational elements of life like stones, waves or mountains, I want to “reconnect to the root” and reveal vital energy.

EVA PIETZCKER, Germany Sea, Stones, 2010 Mokuhanga Woodblock Print, 9.5 x 26.5 inches I highly value spontaneity. My images should come effortless, like by themselves. The elaborate process of printmaking is the perfect counterpart to that. For keeping fresh I constantly oscillate between poles like complexity and simplicity, description and abstraction, the concrete form and the spirit dimension.

ELIZABETH FORREST Glancing North 1, 2009 Mokuhanga on Uchiyama washi, 20 x 16 inches In this ongoing Grid series I’ve focused entirely on colour, textural elements and the sensuous qualities that multiple layers of printed gouache pigments can produce. I generally start with watercolour sketches, then build the print using the sketch as a starting point. Contrast is created through variations in values using for example, bokashi, sesame or tonal overlays. Multiple printings are possible thanks to the durability of washi papers. I find it an interesting challenge to work with one matrix (the grid blocks) in order to explore variations within a limited format, rather than carve many blocks. It harmonizes with a simple and economical approach to life yet achieves surprisingly rich qualities.

ELIZABETH FORREST Glancing North 3, 2009 Mokuhanga on Uchiyama washi, 20 x 16 inches I have worked as an artist printmaker since graduation from Ontario College of Art an Design as a major in printmaking, in 1975. I have always viewed printmaking as my medium of expression which included periods of specialization in serigraphy and lithography. Now I specialize in Japanese woodblock. I find it maintains that charged tension between success and collapse: the reward of focussed working is a quality of luminescence only achievable through the meeting of handmade washi and layerings of pigments under the firm, responsive pressure of the handheld baren.

Elizabeth Forrest's folded book structure at the JPP Gallery, during preparations for the demonstration.

JACOMIJN DEN ENGELSEN, Netherlands Skull, 2009 Mokuhanga on Kochi washi, 12.5 x 8 inches I made thIs print with a skull for an exhibition with the theme “Cabinet de Curiositees” in Vincennes, France. The hand is holding the (human?) skull as if it where the most precious thing. The warm and cold colours symbolize life and death. When I use Mokuhanga I use it exclusively. I use the technique the way I learned it in Japan, so in the orthodox way. The paper I use is from Kochi.

JACOMIJN DEN ENGELSEN, Netherlands Take Some, Give Some, 2008 Mokuhanga on Kochi washi, 12.5 x 10 inches I made “Take Some, Give Some” while I was in Japan. I separated the image of the hands with flowers from the colours that they could have. I wanted to combine abstract and realistic forms. This was influenced by Japanese design of, for instance, kimonos. I tried to use the softness of bokashi gradation in contrast with the more hard edge of the woodcut cutting.

DARIUZ KACA, Poland Homage to Utamaro II, 2005 Woodcut, 17.5 x 12 inches I used mokuhanga exclusively to begin, but now I try to combine it with oil base inks. The Mokuhanga technique offers a special taste of colour. The colour which we can acquire in this way could be very delicate and rare. The final effects could be similar to paintings. Sometimes I print with visible woodblock grain, another time with more coverage and flat, depending on the project. I print on Japanese papers and on European, too.

DARIUZ KACA, Poland Homage to Utamaro III, 2005 Woodcut, 17 x 12 inches Kaca pursues graphics, artist books and painting. In artistic graphics he is well known for his mono- and multi-plate colour prints. Kaca’s biggest works (90 x 100 cm) are concerned with responsibility of form and the visual shape of the wide range of contents; although it may seem to be a paradox, this creation is open in its contents and various interpretations, and, at the same time, closed in form, as it is logical and calculated in details. The themes for his works come from wide areas of religion, mythology, astronomy, cosmography and cosmology. -from the catalogue “Dariusz Kaca, Graphic”

Sigrid hung the show using small clips so the character of the washi could be seen clearly.

BARBARA WYBOU, Canada For 20 years I lived in Japan, where I studied Japanese Woodblock Printing at the studio of the traditional woodblock artist Toshi Yoshida. I discovered the Japanese technique of woodblock printing when I moved there in 1984. I was thrilled, as it allows me to do what I love most - to make prints at home, working small, in great detail, with the fine texture of wood grain and the building up of layer upon layer of translucent watercolour pigment.