In Tokyo, I spent two half days with Richard Flavin at his wife's studio and their home. Ryoko is an amazing textile designer and Richard is an artist who has made paper in Japan for many years. He just finished an edition of 45, a two-book set in a wrapper made of recycled Meiji-era account books. Both are letterpress printed with polymer plates onto paper he has made from kozo he and his friends harvest each year. One is called Kakishibu with kaki-dyed covers (18 pages) and the other is Traditional Japanese Papermaking with indigo-dyed covers (28 pages with 7 woodcut prints; originally published by Asao Shimura in 1983). Both books are 6x4.2", side stitched with covered corners.
I got a set and read them that very night, and asked for more because I think Richard has a huge wealth of knowledge and clear, concise way of writing about his experience. I picked up some very helpful facts right away about kozo cultivation and technical issues regarding kakishibu. In the pictures above, they are sitting on a beautiful hand-woven silk scarf, block printed with indigo, that I bought from Ryoko—that's not included, but her work is wonderful to admire.
**Updated: All sold out! Thanks for the immediate and enthusiastic interest.
1 comment:
the books are beautiful, I just want to hold them.
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