Popular wheat. Popular wheat. This is the unfinished print. I'm Andruzad Arasne. Mokahanga is an art form of the physical. It is the use of our hands, which carve, brush, and print, ultimately creating the final product. Through the physical act of making, Mokahanga carvers and printmakers explore themselves through their work, while at the same time producing a philosophy on how they see their own Mokahanga and the Mokahanga community at large. On this episode of the Unfinished Print, I speak with printmaker Andy Farkas. Andy is an American Mokahanga printmaker, mentor and teacher, who has explored in great detail what it means to create the philosophies and sacrifices it takes to try and understand the simple question of why, why create, why make, and why pursue a passion with an unknown conclusion. I speak with Andy but his Mokahanga, his materials, and how he approaches his prints. We discuss how Andy explores Mokahanga as an intellectual pursuit via documentary, instruction, and writing. Andy's perspectives of Mokahanga are unique and full of life. I hope you enjoy my interview with Andy Farkas, and I hope you enjoy this episode of the Unfinished Print. Before I made Mokahanga, I made a lot of other prints. I was a printmaker of many media, so when I was in school, I kind of focused on lithography. And I also did some time with some engravings, like copper engravings. I did some intaglio as well, but lithography was my main focus. And when I got out of school, I bought a press, an intaglio press, a small one, so that I can continue making intaglio prints. And I did that for a long while. Then I decided that I didn't want to deal with all the assets. I was wanting to kind of create a safer environment for printmaking. So I ditched the assets, and I made a shift to wood engraving, because I had done some copper engraving previously. And a friend of mine had asked me to illustrate a poetry journal. He was going to print it with a letter press, and he said, "Well, go ahead and do a wood engraving. That'd be really neat." And he had seen my work, so he liked my work. So I did that and got into more of the wood engraving, which was great because I could do that in a small space and print it by hand. And ultimately, though, I ended up purchasing a letter press when I was up in Edinburgh. Speaking of Bill Mathy and John Lysack was the head of the printmaking department at that time. That turned out to be an excellent opportunity because I was making books kind of in tandem with everything else that I was doing. I was also making books. And when I say I was making books, I was writing and making prints to go in books, and I was binding them myself. And this was at a time when it was not -- there wasn't a lot of people making a lot of books at that point. And so I ended -- I didn't have a lot of instructions. So I ended up learning a lot from books because I didn't have any teacher instruction as far as that was concerned. Eventually, I did start to get more and more instruction from friends and from teachers as far as the proper ways to bind books. Like I said, though, I was also a writer. So I write poetry and I write short stories. And so when I was in school, I made my first book. And then when I got out of school, I started continuing making books where I would make intaglio prints and I would write to go along with them and then set letter press type. And I put books together. My wife went to Edinburgh University as a graduate student, and when we were there, that's where I met Bill and John Lysack and Franz Spohn, they were very kind to me. Not necessarily used their facilities, but, you know, we had a kind of an agreement worked out where they would house my letter press and I would get to use it. And it was kind of a win-win situation there. That was also a point in time where I was making these wood engravings, and I was making a large book project. But after that large book project, which was full of engravings, it was four short stories, we found together, and there were probably like 28 to 30 wood engravings in it. So it was a huge project. It was a big undertaking. I shifted gears and I had a new story that I had written that I really liked. It was about a river. And I was deciding how I wanted to move forward with that. But previously, I would, you know, take a concept that I had developed and I would see how I can make that into as far as a book, as far as a book form is concerned. Let's see how the best way to make that book. So, you know, book is the art of the book is I love. It's really interesting because in addition to like this visual, you also have this tactile nature. You also have this potentially an auditory piece turning pages and whatnot. And then on top of that, the other thing that I really liked about the book form is that there's also this element of time. You know, you just start to finish. It's not like a book is something that you experience over time. You can't experience the whole thing all at once. So you can play with all of these ideas. Anyway, this book about a river, I decided that I wanted the imagery to feel watery, you know. And so I was pursuing Mokwahanga. I thought Mokwahanga would be, I was familiar with the process, not by function. I had never done it, but I was familiar with it as far as historically. And I'd seen other works that had used that method. Long story short, I ended up teaching myself some Mokwahanga for the first few prints. And it turned out pretty good. Not like great or anything, but they turned out pretty good. And I was happy with them. My wife was still at Edinburgh at the time, and I believe it was that time that Bill Matthew, he invited some folks from Japan to come and teach a workshop at Edinburgh. Tula was there. That was a great experience. And it really kind of galvanized my desire to move forward with that process. So from then, I kind of worked doing wood engraving and Mokwahanga in tandem. Depending on the project, I would do one or the other. And I have more and more gravitated towards Mokwahanga for multiple reasons. It seems like you just kind of spontaneously, like it was in the back of your head, Mokwahanga, then one day you're just like, you know what, I'm going to give it a try. Well, I tried Mokwahanga because I had this head of vision of something I wanted to produce, and I wanted that to be a part of it. After working with the process, I found that the process aligned very closely with some of my, I guess it aligned with the way I ideally want to make work. You know, I love the entire process of making a Mokwahanga print. You know, and everything that goes with it, not just the actual carving and the printing, but also the materials and the kind of the wild natural nature of making a print, which is, you know, sometimes or oftentimes unpredictable. Jack's opposed to that against all of my wood engraving work was where I, you know, it's very precise, you know, and I know exactly what it's going to look like when it's printed, and when I carve it, you know, I'm effectively carving out each and every line. I know everything is going to happen. So there's no surprises. I'm always fascinated by how things start, because things don't just happen randomly, and this comment hits the earth kind of thing. Yeah, and human beings, we all, we kind of take things in and they germinate. You know, I feel the same way, you know, like draws like I'm not doing this. I'm not doing this by accident. Like you said, you know, I'm doing this because it aligns with the person that I am. You know, I love working with natural materials. On top of that, the printmaking process is something that I love working within, because it helps me kind of develop the work that I want to create. So if you're comparing etching and mokonga, who is Andy Farkus making etching and who is Andy Farkus making mokonga? Sometimes I'll tell this story, but when I was making etchings, that kind of, that, so funny, that Andy Farkus, that was at a time when I was, I was very, it was very early in my artistic career. You know, I'd just gotten out of art school undergrad, by the way. I don't have a graduate degree, but I had just gotten out of art school and I, you know, was making work that I felt like an artist should make. I was developing these ideas, and then I was drawing them, and I was etching them, and I was, you know, very controlled and very contrived, all of that work. And it wasn't free. I think that me as a woodcut mokonga artist, I am part of it is how I've grown in a personality and my view about art making in general, but also it's just now art making is more like freedom. And so when I approach an image now, it's completely, it's completely in a different way. I mentioned previously that my friend who had invited me to illustrate a poetry journal, he had told me to do a drawing or to make a print of whatever I wanted. And, you know, up until that point, you know, I did a lot of very representational, oftentimes figurative, well drafted imagery. You know, people liked it and people, you know, galleries showed it. And, you know, it was, it was well received in one, on one level. But this print that I did for my friend, this wood engraving, I did this. It's like, oh, I'll do whatever I want. Okay, so I did this bear who had, he was connected to this parachute being pulled off of this cliff. And he had this crown that was kind of falling off of his head. And then I just wrote some verse that went with it. And it just felt great. And it was like nothing else had ever done. You know, it could just be where I was as an artist. Like, I didn't feel like drawing animals was professional enough or whatever I was thinking. But just letting go, just doing what should be coming out of me, rather than what I thought should be coming out of me, really shifted my whole paradigm of, like I said, how I produced artwork. And the other, the other thing that really galvanized that is that after this image was done, it was, it was very well received. Everybody, everybody loved it. Galleries wanted more of this type of work, patrons wanted more of this type of work. And so it really got me thinking about what is it about what changed? I mean, because it's more than just a cute bear, right, with a crown. It's not, it's not just that that people are drawn to. It really was a formative point where I started developing a viewpoint of art making. I mean, regardless of printmaking, because, you know, like I mentioned before, like I pivoted from lithography to etching, and then I pivoted to engraving, would engraving, then I pivot to mocha-hanga. And who knows? I mean, maybe I'll pivot again. I have no idea. To me, that's not, I don't want to be, I don't want to be kind of pigeonholed. But I do want to, I want to create this, I want to create work that is, that aligns with my, my feelings and, and the way that I want to pursue, the way I want to pursue making art. Right, I mean, these are right, it doesn't evolution here. You're speaking about, and as a human being, you're always evolving. And you're using art in order to kind of explain who you are. Yeah, and it's not, I mean, it, it is. I mean, I guess it is. It is who I am. I mean, I guess that's the, I guess the, that's the underpinnings there, because I'm not trying to explain to anyone else, though. You know, I'm trying to explain it to myself. You know, is that kind of path of self discovery, like all my work is, is, is intensely personal. You know, nobody knows, nobody knows why I'm making the work that I'm making. And oftentimes, and I should say almost all the time, I don't, I don't know the work that I'm making as I'm making it. So, because when I'm making it, it's a conversation, you know, it's not a, it's not a static, it's not a static one for one. One of my own personal philosophies that I have developed as far as the creative process concern is that I no longer create work that's one for one. I don't develop an idea and take that idea and make a print of that. It's not the way I make work anymore. I don't make a drawing and transfer it to a block. That's not the way I make work anymore because that was the work that felt contrived to me. And I don't want to project that on anyone else that those are my personal, those are my personal experiences with my own work. I'm not saying anyone else has those experiences, even though they might. When I, when I would go back and really kind of evaluate the work that I had made, really being honest, I was like, man, I just made something that is contrived. And either it's going to be one dimensional, or it's going to be, I don't know. It just didn't have the depth, it didn't have the depth that I wanted out of a piece of artwork. That's the thing with Mochaonga I found making my own work is the feeling trapped in some ways. There were all these rules and traditions and the thing Mochaonga is a deep tradition and we're talking hundreds of years from China to today and through Japan. And you've got all these rules and how to do things and then you're trying to learn something like, this is how you should do it. And that's all great and well, but I think it's a personality thing. And if you're that type of personality, it's like, I can't do it this way forever. I have to do my own thing and still call this Mochaonga. Yeah, I mean, if somebody ever wanted to not call my work Mochaonga, I wouldn't be offended. I mean, I don't, I've learned these processes and I practice them. But as far as tradition goes, I'm, I, and part of it is I didn't, I haven't learned under, I haven't learned in a traditional fashion as part of the issue. You know, so, so I have that. What I'm trying to do is create imagery, you know, and so I'm using a method that I have learned from multiple different sources, from individual people, from books, from, from personal practice. And I find, you know, that personal experience is, is invaluable. Once you have a skill set that you need to be, like you said, you need to be able to, you need to be able to put it away. I need to be able to not think about it. If I want to really pull out what's, what's deep inside, I can't be thinking about like how I'm holding a knife or how much rice paste I'm putting on a, on a block. I need to, I need to have, I need to feel it. You know, and I think that, you know, people who, who really know what they're doing, they're at that level. They're at that stage, you know, they've been practicing this some, in some cases, their whole lives. And, you know, yeah, they have, they have a sense, they have a feel for this that they don't need to worry about. And, but when you, when you don't have to worry about, you know, the form of it, then you can, then you can be really free with what you're doing. Yeah. And so, and sometimes it may not work. And, but sometimes you, you might end up with something that you love and that you would not have, you would not have arrived at otherwise. So, that, that's the, that's the thing that I like about it. I don't like, you know, when I, when I, I'll just kind of segue into my process a little bit, but like, when I start an idea, you know, it's just a very small, loose sketch. It's, it's almost nothing in my sketchbook, you know, it's, it's some of them, you would look at them and you'd be like, I don't even know what that is. But to me, it's like the inkling of an idea. And so now, if I, if it's a fully fleshed out thing, then, you know what, I'll just leave it. Great. Oh, it's this beautiful drawing in my book. I'm just going to leave it. I like that. Because if I try to make a print of that, it's, you know, it's just, that's all it's going to be. And it's not going to be as good as the drawing that I made. So like, if I want something that has the life and vibrancy of a, of a sketch in my sketchbook, I can't, I can't just do something and then replicate it. So I, I start with this inkling and then I just, I redraw it onto my woodblock. And also, again, loosely, you know, I give some, some form and some, some things that I want in it, but I also give myself the permission to, to change what I want to change and like, to add what I want to add or take out what I want to take out or, you know, that mountain. I feel like I wanted to kind of like, even though maybe I drew this from a study that was the mountain was this way, maybe I need that mountain to kind of come down a little bit more so it feels like it's holding this thing. You know, I, I don't know. It's like, so I can, I can do that. And I can, when I create and craft this image as I do that. And then because the lines are loose, I can come in with my knife. And I can just carve. I don't have to follow a line. I carve through a line, then I'll make a new line, you know, whatever I'm feeling, I can, I can change. I mean, even as I'm carving. And then after the carving is done, then I'll go through and I'll, I'll print this and I don't know what the colors are going to be. So I'll print a color and then I respond to that color and then I print another color and those those colors will mean intermingle with each other and then I get excited about it and I'll be like, oh, well now now all of a sudden, maybe this should be this. And so, so I build this print. And so from start to finish, it's always an exciting endeavor, you know, I'm excited every step of the way. And then when I get. And when I get to the end, I don't, it's exciting for me because I didn't know what it was going to be. I didn't have like this roadmap that showed me exactly what it was going to be at the end. So, so for me, every step of the way was fresh and it was exciting. And I can, I can carry that vibrancy that kind of like that energy along with me as it, as it develops. And then for my work, if you're, you know, I'm sure you're familiar with it, but like, there's, there's text with my work as well. And so, the text comes after the images done in the same way is like, I don't know what draws me to this, to this image. I don't know what started me off on this path. But I'm following this path and I'm responding to all these things as I'm generating and creating this image. And finally, when the image is done, it's, it's also exciting too because the, if I let it, that image speaks to me. And so, let that image speak to me. And that's where the text comes from. This work is work that is for me. So, you, we were talking about that maybe a little bit early, but yeah, this is, this is the, you know, like you're saying, like the story of me or however you said that, but in a different way, you know, I'm not, I'm not going out of my way to tell you a story about me. I am, I'm just letting this come through me and out into the world. The mochanga kind of lets that be in a lot of ways. If you feel like there's a symbiotic relationship between the accidents and then what you're trying to do, and then the wood and the materials and how they kind of have a life of their own. You're just basically trying to herd these things together. And then what comes out, you should, and to be happy with whatever comes out in ways. I know you're, you're trying to control, it's like trying to control something, but sometimes it's uncontrollable and just let that happen. That is one of the, that is one of the big lessons that I learned from practicing mochanga, you know, to let go. You know, I, I've been working in so many printmaking processes that are, we're confining that here I am working in a process now that that is just free and wide open, like, you know, the water, water has a mind of its own, you know, you get a little bit of extra water on there and it's going to be completely different, but lovely, the grain of the wood wants to do a certain thing. And sometimes just got to let it. I mean, I could fight it, but like, I don't, I don't, I don't have the desire. I don't have the desire to fight it. I don't want to be a controller of all of these things. I'm not going to be a controller of all of these things, but I'm not going to be a controller of all of these things. I'm not going to be a controller of all of these things, I'm not going to be a controller of all of these things, I'm not going to be a controller of all of these things. But I think there are very particular thoughts on that as well, you know, words do things that imagery can't do in the same way that imagery does things that words can't do. So, in the best possible way, I want words to help broaden what the image is able to convey. I want to reiterate what the images conveying that would be that would serve no purpose, no real purpose anyway. And I don't want just decorative text either to me that that's not the purpose. So, by my goal with text and incorporating text an image is that I want the text to broaden the scope of what the image can be. And they can get something from it, especially if they allow themselves that moment of peace and space to do that. Sometimes, though, some people, including myself, need a little bit of help, a little prompt, and words are good like that. I feel like in some ways, the text that goes with my imagery is kind of like, you know, it's kind of like the latch. You can undo the latch and then you open the window. It draws you in. It allows for contemplation. You read the text, but then you experience the image. That's pretty much my personal goal. I want the image to broaden what the text can be and what the text to broaden what the image can be. I don't want a situation where the text is simply just reiterating what the image already is saying. I mean, size matters too with text as well, right? It does. Early on, when I was incorporating text and imagery, the text was black. And I had real issues with how it looked aesthetically, because I'm a designer too. That's how I also make a living. And so I know the power of letter forms. Visually, they are so strong. And if you see one and recognize one, you can't help, but look at it. It demands and commands your attention. And so I was having a difficult time balancing text and image. So now it's funny. So I will get this is a question I often get asked, like gallery openings and things like that. Why is your text so hard to read? It's not impossible to read. It's just difficult. I don't make it immediately apparent. I want you to know it's there, so you know it's there. But I also don't want it to be the first thing that you see. And I also don't want it to be something that is constantly taking attention away from the image. With the with the mocha hanga, now I do, I do a thing where I will print the text with letterpress. And usually I'll just use like a blue. Sometimes a transparent blue and I'll dust it with some gold pigment dust. And it kind of gives it a gold foil look. You have to read it at a certain angle and a certain light. You know it's there, you see it, but you have to get in a certain location to actually read it. And so it's not as distracting. It's not as attention grabbing. And it plays nicer with the imagery. Yeah, do you think that if you didn't put the words in, it would change the idea of the print? Well, yeah, I mean it, I think in one way, yes, in another way, no. I mean, you know, where we are. And again, I put myself in this category, so I'm not trying to say anything when I say this, but like, you know, we are a culture that doesn't contemplate art, especially visual art. I mean, there are definitely exceptions. I don't want to say it. But this is not like, you know, the 18th century when they're paintings and people will go and they'll look at a painting the way somebody might go out to a movie. I think that the text, like I said, that's why I mentioned, gave you like that latch analogy. Like the image is can live by itself. I know what it says to me. I can sit and I can see it and I can feel it and I can let it speak to me. I can do that. But sometimes somebody will come to an image if they're if they're looking at images in a gallery and they'll just say, Oh, that's, you know, these are really pretty pictures. They're really nice or they're really well crafted or I like. I like that cute badger, you know, whatever they're going to say. And that's totally cool. But it's hard for me to to think about my images without text, because the text is so important to me. Like, it says something to me. And so it's what I need. It's what I need the print to be. So the same way I would add a tree in this corner, or I would, I would make these two characters holding hands or whatever I think that I would want to do in an image. The same, the same goes for the text, because it's not, it's not separate. It feels like it could be. You know, we have this idea. Oh, there's text and then there's image. But that is doesn't have to be like that. Right. It doesn't have to be like that. Can you change the font style? Does that come into play? It can. Usually, I always set it by hand. And so it's usually whatever type is available. My home is small enough that I can't house my letterpress here. So, you know, it's, it's been in various locations, different universities. Now it's at friends home. But wherever it goes, there's usually a little bit. Everybody's got different type. But I try to keep it small, and I try to keep it with a serif font. I find that it feels, it feels comfortable and classic and legible reading wise. How do you, how do you choose your subjects for your prints? I think that I just. So choosing just, it implies that I'm in charge. Right. Right. But I'm really not. Things just, I just let things come out. And so, I have a, I have a sketchbook full of little, full of sketches, just like a lot of artists, obviously. And whatever, whatever wants to come out will come out. And sometimes maybe I've been observing my bird feeder. Maybe I just want to be outside. And there's a tree out there that I love. Or maybe there's like a small patch of violets or this, you know, whatever that I feel like, I'm just drawn to, I'm drawn to this or I'm drawn to that. And then that stuff just kind of sits there and stews within me. I've taken it in. It's not like I'm just looking at it with my, looking at things with my eyes. You know, there's a difference between looking at things with your eyes and taking it in through your eyes and having it pass through you and back out again through your hand. When that happens, then it's, then it's internalized. I think otherwise it's just a reflection. It feels like that to me. This is the way I, that's the way I feel about it. So I have all of these, I have all of these pieces and parts. And so, the choosing comes from a, like a, like a personal sensitivity. Sometimes I'll go through my sketchbook if, if I want to look through and see what I've done in the past. Sometimes I will do a sketch and I'll feel like I'm really drawn to this. I'm excited to work on this. And so that, that sensitivity is, is that understanding that now is the time. And this is the path that I want to tread. So if I didn't have that sensitivity, then I would just go through and analyze my illustrations and decide which of them was best suited for print or which one I thought would sell. Or this or that, that's not the way I do it. Especially in the printmaking process. I'm going to be living with this image for months. I've got to carve it. Then I've got to carve color blocks and then I've got to print it. And for me, I'm in a stage of my life where I am not prolific. You know, I have, I have three daughters, you know, young girls and I, you know, I have to support a family. And so like, man, this is, is tough getting all this stuff done. So, so it's a commitment. When I'm making an image, I have to, I have to love it. I have to really want it. And there have been images that have sat in my sketchbook for years. And then I come back and around them like, now's the time. You started somewhere making art where there's just drawing and then it evolves from there. The prints that you're making now and the images you're making now, I mean, I think it's fair to say they're very fantastical in a lot of ways. They're very storybook. They're very, you know, you're going to different, you're going into a different world. Was that something that evolves? I mean, also those images, when I think about them, like they're so in detailed. And then you talk earlier about how you're, it's okay to make mistakes when I'm carving it and I'm doing the colors, but you don't, I don't see that when I look at the prints. I think there's seems like there's so much detail and there's so much emotion going into this. If you sat down with one of my prints and you analyzed it like that, yeah, you would. I mean, I honestly feel like, I honestly feel like that is not the most important thing in making art. My personal belief is that the spirit behind the work is the most important thing. And when that comes through, yeah, you'll overlook all that stuff. You won't look at that print and see, oh, there's a little gap there, color gap. You must not have done color studies and figured out how all that was going to fit together. Of course I didn't. I didn't do that. I was like, all that to put all that to say, and I appreciate that. And I do, and I work really hard at my craft. It's not that I don't, but it's not, but it's not the goal for me. So, and my work has always been narrative. This is something that I discovered about that I discovered about my work early on. And it's something that I don't know if it unique, not unique to me, but like unique to like narrative artists, but like, it's the way I view work. Like, even if somebody has a painting of a waterfall, and that's all that it is. Well, I can come to that and I can, I can project my narrative into it. We all come to artworks with our own, with our own baggage, our own stuff, our own experiences. And so like, yeah, I can, I can feel that. I can feel this waterfall, or I can, I can feel this, this field, those trees or this river or whatever it is. This, this sunset that somebody has, has produced. And it's like, oh, yeah, I feel this. It's like, I remember a point in time when I felt the feelings that I feel when I, when I had experienced these things. And, and that's a narrative to me. I mean, I think, I think almost all work is narrative in that, in that sense, in that regard. And so my work, though, has always been probably a little bit more narrative. And part of it is, part of it is I do love stories. I tell, I tell my girls stories, I write stories, and my work has always had that, that bent. And even more so now, because, because on top of all of that, a world gets built every time I make an image because of this conversation that I'm having. Like, oh, I'm carving this image right now. And this tree wasn't here before, but I want this tree here. It feels right for this tree to be here. And then as I'm carving it, I'm like, you know what? There's this gap at the bottom of the tree. I want that gap to be there. It's going to provide something. Maybe something's in that gap, or maybe something's growing beside it. I don't know. But like, I'm having these types of feelings about things and like I'm letting things grow. And sometimes when I get to the end, and that that piece of work is speaking back to me, because just like I would go and see whoever's painting of a waterfall, I am here viewing my own work that has just come out of me that I don't feel like I completely 100% created. It's something that is, it's not something that I conceptualized. I've spoken about this a couple of times to some folks, but like, it's the idea of like a conceptualized or cognitive art-making versus like this more spiritual, personal, conversational approach to art-making. When I say spiritual, I mean just like the creative spirit. And to me, that represents an image that I can respond to in this own kind of narrative way. You know, so in addition to the narrative of the creation of the print, now I also have this narrative. It's because it's speaking back to me. Or maybe two things are in this image are speaking to each other that I didn't recognize that I didn't recognize initially. And a personal level, you're talking about narrative and how you're making your work, but how does that narrative change when other people are looking at the work? I can't know that. I can't know how it changes. But my hope is, is that when other people view my work, that they find their own experience and their own self in it as well. They can recognize themselves in the story that's being told. I mean, those are like the greatest stories. You know, those are the stories that like, either like it creates in us like, "Oh, I've been here or I want this or like I'm inspired by this." And a lot of these narratives will in my imagery will do that for me, whatever it is. Sometimes it's sometimes it's a negative wisdom that I would never have said in a million years, but I needed to hear. Sometimes it's something that I needed to see that's inspiring me that to move on or to carry on, whatever it is. And I think that what happens, like again, I don't want to say what happens, but my hope, my dear hope is that because I am earnest and sincere, I'm not holding back. I'm just saying, I'm just putting out there myself. And, you know, the feeling is that that energy is in the image. It's in the work that's been created. And so that resonates with somebody who comes to it. They recognize that it's not a tangible thing. You can't like tangibly point to that and say, "This is why I respond to this work." But my hope is that the sincerity that I put into it resonates. And it's just like when you have a friend, you know, when a friend is sincere and honest with you, you want to be sincere and honest with that friend back. And that's the relationship. And so like I talked earlier about like a relationship between me and the image that I'm creating this conversation and this relationship. But then it goes on. And then it has its own relationship with whoever, whoever comes to it. And I want the relationship that that work of art has with somebody else. That relationship to be honest and sincere too, you know, so that has to be real. That has to be the real me. It can't be the contrived me. This is what I think this person is going to want to hear, you know, or it can't be, this is what I believe and I want you to believe it too. It can't be those things. It has to be something that people are just going to want to come to, like just, yeah. Does it matter what people think? No, not what other people think. What matters is what I think. Like I said, the only person that has to resonate with this work is me. If I don't resonate with the work that I'm making, then I'm not, and this is just me, but I'm not sure why I'm doing it. I have to be doing this for more than just the fun of it. I guess that's just me. Again, I don't want to project that out on anyone else, but like for me, I have to respond to this work. In my research, I saw the documentary by Grey Sky Studios. Oh, yeah. I watched your creative making the creative little lecture you gave on your website. It's been an hour long. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm going to ask you a question. I wrote this quickly because I was like watching all this stuff, and I don't know if we'll keep this, but I want to see if you can answer this. The question I have is, what is something? Because as I was watching all this stuff, I'm like, that's just what hit me. I was like, what is something? There's a lot of ways to answer that question, obviously, but you know, something can be whatever you want it to be. Yeah, I mean, it is a tough, that is a tough question. Wow, you stumped me. No, I... There's your work, everything that you talk about. I mean, it's very philosophical and it's very deep, which I really appreciate because I think that there's so much complexity behind what people, the actions that people do. It's so easy to get bogged down in the Instagram algorithm to be liked, to be wanted, to be like, I'm doing mokohanga, I'm doing this and to be accepted by a group, an organization, your peers, your colleagues. Words like profound, you're always looking for something profound, or you seem to be looking for something that does this kind of vibe. And maybe the question is unanswerable in some ways in that it's more conceptual, more like a concept, maybe it's an idea, I don't know, but like you're always looking for something. There's something, there's an answer within what you're doing. I understand what you're saying now. I understand what you're saying. It's because my process is a path, and because when I end with a particular image, I am left with something. It provides me something so that journey has brought me to a place, and that place is that something I think that you're referring to, and that something is a something that has come through me, but it's not of me. Because how can it, if it's speaking to me, it's like there's this undercurrent of the intangible that no one can see or touch or hear or anything that we want access to, because it will give us meaning. But really, the something is not always that tangible end, like I was saying, I have a tangible end of an image that has provided me something, because I still make imagery. And I still follow this same process, and so am I still looking for something? All I'm doing is I am trying to, I'm trying to live my best life. Art is part of that. It's a big part, but I also have family and other things like we all do. And so all of that needs to be balanced. We need to follow these paths. And when I follow this path, I want to be connected with my best self. And I think that is ultimately that the path of me creating work, that is where I'm headed. That is the path where I can see, or I can have access to that intangible. We make work because I want that intangible, those intangible qualities. And I think you're right, however much of this you keep, whatever, but there's a certain point where words break down. And I think that's where I'm hitting at this point, because that's why I make the work that I make. You know, I love philosophy, I love all this stuff and I love making work, but like, I can't, I cannot explain to you the feeling I get the sensitivities that I have. The responses that I get, I cannot, I can't convey those, all of those things. All I can do is just make this work, this artwork, and that's it, that's what I have. That is my path, is my way of accessing things that I wouldn't otherwise be able to access. Like I said, those undercurrents that we all share, you know, we're all human. And a lot of people, they love, you know, we'd like to point out differences, but this is defining the ways that we are alike. Finding the ways that we're the same is really what is important, you know, and so I think that by accessing these undercurrents, these invisible things, all of a sudden, we don't have to worry about the external, worry about the internal, you know, it's like you were saying with my image. I have to say, it was a huge, huge compliment, because I know there's tons of flaws in all of my images, and for you to say, you don't see it. It just says to me that you see the inside of the print, you know what I mean? It's like, yeah, that's what I'm going for, you know, I'm not trying to be famous or anything with all of this work. I just, I want it to be something that I can access that other people can access to, you know, I want relationships with people. This is how I get it. How do you balance your philosophies and ideas of what art should be or what Congress should be with selling work? Well, I'm lucky, I suppose, in some sense, this is that, well, let me start by saying that I don't want to create any kind of presumption. I do not make a living as an artist, so I cannot support my family selling artwork. I can't do that. I would love to, but I can't, so I do other things. That being said, I don't worry about selling my work. I don't worry about it, because I can't. One, it's not, I mean, on a practical level, it's not even enough to pay my bills, so I can't worry about it. This is my labor of love. If, if I were to, if it were my, my, my job, and that's how I made my money, it potentially could change. I don't think it would change at this point in my life, but earlier in my career, I think it definitely would have, would have altered things. And so in some ways, I'm really glad that things have kind of unfolded this way. Because I don't know, I just, I just love the work that I make. You know, I love it. I live with it, you know, and when somebody chooses to live with my work, that's super flattering. And I'm lucky because I make work that other people seem to like. So, I mean, I do sell work, and I am so grateful for everyone who supports me because I do hope, I do hope that at some point, I'm able to make that work somehow, maybe when the kids are out of the house. But, but yeah, I, I think that at this point right now, I just make the work that I love, that, that I, that I need to make, that I'm being honest with myself about. That I'm excited to make. And the rest will just fall into place. I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to be more than I am. You know, I'm not trying the market to the marketing thing. I mean, I do have, you know, I do like, you know, you fall in is I have an Instagram account. And I'll post like my process. You know, I started doing this just so people could see how, how the process goes. Thought it was fun. And I, I know very little about Instagram algorithms and all that jazz. I almost, I rarely, if ever even put hashtags on my posts. But, but I'm not pressing it. I'm letting things just evolve naturally because I'm very much about that. It's like the same way I do with my prints. It's like, you know what? If this is going to grow, so be it. If it happens, great. I welcome that. But if it doesn't happen, I'm still going to make art. Now, that's not to say shouldn't have a plan, but the right plan in place is important. It's important to understand where you are right now and what you want out of your life so that you can make an appropriate plan of action for like, if you want this to be your business. Yeah. Okay. You know what, I'm going to, I'm going to do this thing. I'm going to market. This is how I'm going to market and this is going to, how I'm going to do these, I'm going to do these tours and I'm going to maybe do some pre sales and I'm going to maybe do, you know, kind of like create some, whatever I want to do, you know, make your, make your plan, make your budget, you know, figure out what your addition size is going to be. All that stuff. That's just not the way I'm, I'm running things. You know, I want to, I want to make work and I want to, I want to share. I want to share. About the creative process. You know, I love, I love all that stuff, you know, just patreon help that all a little bit, a little bit. I have some great supporters on patreon and I don't, I don't know if you can see how many, but they're like, I don't know, a handful and they're helpful. Let me tell you, I, because I had some slim times recently and super helpful, you know, to, to get this next print done. You know, so like, yeah, it's, it's valuable, but I don't want to sound doom and gloom for, for, you know, aspiring artists, because I think that's important. You can make things work, depends on the kind of artist you want to be too. You know, I, I am the person that I am. And I see, you know, I, I, I'm not going to, I'm not going to be anybody else. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to bend over backwards. I'm not going to fight something that is not a fight that I want to fight. I just want to live life. Is this, is this connected to like not censoring yourself? Because you talk a bit about that and the video and the doc and like the idea of censoring yourself. Is that, is that part of that? I think the non censoring piece is, it's just, it's an important hurdle to overcome for, for everybody. You know, cause like I, I spoke to in that, in that class in the night, you know, everybody, everybody's an artist, everyone's creative, everyone has creative potential. This is what, this is part of, this is part of the, the thing that makes us all connected, the same, you know, we, we all have this. I hear people say, oh, I don't have a creative bone in my body. Well, that's not the point. You just, you're just shutting yourself down. It's like people have the idea that, that great creative, just manifests in, in, in genius minds. And that's how it happens. But that's, that's not, you know, it's, it's a process. And for some people, that process is longer than others. And, and really all you need to do is not censor yourself. You need to have an open mind when you have an open mind and you don't censor yourself. Well, then you can go wherever you want to go and do whatever you want to do. Make whatever you want to make. Nothing's stopping you. Again, it may not be great. Maybe you don't have, maybe you just don't have the practice. Maybe you don't have the inclination to do a lot of practice and make drawing. Well, maybe drawing is not even the way that you, you know, to express yourself creatively. But even if it is, and you're not a good drawer, you can still do that as long as you're getting something out of it. I think people just, people just, people need that. And so the non-censorship piece for me is, it's just kind of, it's the getting out of your own way. It's, it's letting your creative spirit lead rather than letting your mind kind of take control. Your mind has a useful role. You know, it's like, oh my gosh, I need to make dinner. I need to make sure this gets done by the end of the day. And I need to, you know, pick up the kids from soccer practice. And I need to do this or that or the other, you know? So like, yeah, I mean, your mind is constantly going. And it's, and it's easy to kind of shift that into this art-making sphere. Like, oh, do, do, do, do it. So now I'm going to come over here into my art sphere and I'm going to do this stuff. When in reality, you are censoring yourself. You know, your mind is kind of like in charge. You can't even, you can't even see. You don't, the thing is, you don't even know you're censoring yourself. You're not even letting inklings of ideas come out. It's like if you sat quietly for five minutes and then at the end of that five minutes thought of like a cloud bank, you must be thinking of this for a reason. What is it about that? All of that through. Don't sit there and think, I've seen cloud banks done much better than I could ever do a cloud bank. And so I'm not going to do this or this has been done too much. You don't get anywhere if you, if you self-sensory yourself, at any point along the process. It applies to life as well. You tell yourself, I can't do this thing. Why are you telling yourself that? You know, I am doing this thing. I am doing this. And sometimes circumstances are tough and I have to do this design work and I got to work all weekend and I got to, I got to do these things that I don't want to do. That doesn't mean I'm censoring myself. But for me, because of that and then to say, oh, I can't do all this others. I can't do this. It's only because you have this idea that this should be done maybe in a certain timeframe or in a certain way or with certain materials that, that you should be able to afford. You know, all of this stuff that you just need to throw out the window until you recognize that, you know what, I will, I'm going to, I'm just going to do this. Yeah. I mean, it goes back to the idea of freedom, right? You talk about being free and how, and that's different for lots of different people. I mean, it's funny how freedom is, it's not necessarily subjective, but it's also complicated especially when you're doing something like art. Yeah. Totally. I mean, my idea of it is probably very different from a lot of artists. I would not be surprised and that doesn't mean my way is right and their way is wrong or my way is wrong and their way is right because that's the wrong focus. Yeah, the focus should be on just like experiencing, you know, what you need to experience. The colors of your prints are unique in some ways. How do you, how do you do your color separations and the documentary kind of shows you how you're, how you, how you're printing, but I like to hear it from you specifically and how you, how do you figure that out, how do you plan that out? Yeah. So technically what I do is after I, I carve my keyblock first, that's pretty traditional. I print the keyblock. And if I think that I might have, I don't know, 14, 15 colors, I'll, I'll print that many keyblock images, proofs with, with the kinto registration and then I'll glue all those down on other blocks. And at that point, I'll just kind of have them all out there and then I'll just kind of decide where I want swaths of color. It's like, you know what, this is obviously going to be the sky. That's easy. You know, this is obviously going to be part of this tree. That's the easy one. This is obviously going to be the ground. That's easy. So I start laying these out. Okay. I don't have necessarily a color in mind, but I, but I know that this is, this is what that is. I'm not going to, I'm not going to not make this ground. So I need to make this a block. And once I have all those major blocks kind of set in, they don't come back in and, and see how I can, I can overlay some color, I'm like, Oh, well, you know, if this is ground, maybe I can add a little bit of that into this tree. I can, maybe I can add this into this figure, whatever it is. And I should say while I'm doing this, I'm not carving out these blocks. I'm using usually pencil to just kind of like sketch in, not colored pencil, just the graphite pencil. And so I'm sketching in all of these different bits. And then I'll come in with the shadow block and I'll just, I'll just kind of like, I'll just sketch in what I think some shadows should be where the shadows should be on these things. And so once I have all of these kind of like roughed in, then I'll, then I'll, then I'll start carving all the color blocks until I'm done. And I'll make notes on them sometimes too. Like, oh, I'll probably want this to fade up because I want to kind of create this kind of, you know, maybe I want this kind of sense of foreground or maybe I want this kind of like to feel like it's kind of enclosed or whatever, whatever I'm, whatever I'm feeling like I want. But those are all just notes, and then I'll go and I'll sit down after they're all carved. So I'm working on a new print right now. So the first color I printed, I decided to print this sky as this kind of like faded pinky red. I wasn't sure what that was going to look like. So after that, I, I printed some green. I really liked how that laid on top of this kind of gradation of this red, it's kind of like the green is more vibrant in certain places and then it kind of like, you know, fades back with this, the red and it turned out really, really nice. And so I'm not sure I'm going to print tomorrow, which color I'm going to print tomorrow. So you don't do, there's no watercolor studies with these? Sometimes I'll do a watercolor study, but I don't often do them. Sometimes I will. Like I did a watercolor study for this one I'm working on, but I'm not really following it. I mean, again, it's like I told you earlier. I, in the moment, here I am, like the watercolor study I did last week, but here I am. And now I'm sitting in front of this block, I'm getting ready to print and I'm going to mix a color. Okay. What am I going to, what color am I going to mix? Okay. Then I'm like, I'm going to do this. And again, it's kind of like that, that's that sensitivity that I'm talking about. Like, I know what I want and I'm in the moment. I'm not going to do something I did a week ago because I already did that. I did that color study. Yeah, it's fine. It's okay. And it probably wouldn't be fine. You know, if I did, if I used all those same colors and, but yeah, I don't know. I don't need to, you know. So, and then as far as the color is concerned, this is traditional too, but I use dry pigment and I use all non-toxic and, but they're still dry, so you don't want to inhale them. So you still need to be a little careful with them. But once they're, once they're wet, they're fine. So I'll mix dry pigments with a little rabbit skin glue or if I don't have a rabbit skin glue, I'll use a little bit of gum arabic and mix my color and then I have my liquid color and then I mix it with the rice paste on the, on the block as, you know, pretty, pretty standardly. You don't use gouache? I use gouache if I'm lazy, but I don't need, I don't often use gouache. I mean, I have whiting so I can make gouache effectively, if I needed to be more, if I needed to go further or be more opaque, I can add whiting to it. But I like the feel that just this raw pigment gives and sometimes pigment is grainy and sometimes it's smooth and some, but it's, but it's always feels natural. So I use these, you know, these inert pigments that I'm using, they're all natural pigments. So I appreciate that. They're not usually, you know, produced chemical pigments. There's, you know, there might be a couple of them in there if I'm, where do you get them? Let's see. Let's see. I bought some from Sonopia, I've gotten some from Earth pigments. I think there might be one other that I might be forgetting. But those are the two, those are the two that I have the most from those two. So you're color mixing as you go? Yeah. Color mix as I go. Yeah. You have primary colors and then you go from there? Yep. Pretty much. Certain things are hard to mix, especially with dry pigment. So if there's a green, I do have one green, actually I have a couple of different greens and they're all, they're all natural. So, so usually I need to mix yellow in with those to get them to punch a little bit more. The wood that you're using, is it cherry? Yeah. So that's been a little up and down recently. Traditionally, you know, for my work to cut costs, I'll use cherry for a, for the keyblock and then I'll use a sheen apply wood for the color. I might shift that a little bit because a friend started playing down some, some cherry for me and I've just been using a couple of solid cherry blocks here recently. And the sheena will sometimes, the laminate will sometimes pop up. Not often, but sometimes, and that's a little bit of a pain when that happens. But yeah. And the other thing that sheena will sometimes, sometimes there's a spot on a sheena that's going to be way too absorbent and just like I just can't. So like it just does not want to print, right? So again, it's like just letting go is like, oh, well, that's not going to, that's not going to be the way that exactly they were wanted to be. But, you know, I can, I can relax and rest in the fact that like I said earlier is like the mindset that I have helps me feel like, you know what? It's not the most important thing. I'm going to be okay. This image is going to be okay because, you know what? My spirit is in this, you know, that's, that's what matters. Well, what's your addition like? So right now I'm printing an addition of, well, I got 72 prints I'm printing and I've got about eight make ready. So, so I go through there, hopefully I'll end up with 60 to 65. That's my hope. A few more if I get really good. But yeah, I try to print a decent sized edition and I feel like that's a pretty decent sized edition. It's not like exorbitant. It's not like I'm printing like 300. But it's enough that, that I can maintain stock and it'll hold for a little while. That's, that's the primary reason I plus, you know, I want, I want more people. People to have one. You know, and I do do some business accounting as far as that goes to is like, you know what? Over the life of this print, how much, how much do I need to make? How much do I feel like I want to make on a print? I'm not trying to sell it. But I do know that eventually this edition will probably sell out. I don't know. Maybe it'll be maybe it'll be two years. Maybe it'll be 10 years, but it'll probably sell out and over the life of that print, what do I want, what do I want the return on this investment to be? That's the business side of that. And then if I can maintain a stock of these images, then I can start to, to plan out more of the financial side of what I need to put away for more paper or, you know, more materials or supplies, everything else, what I can put towards the family living expenses. So how do you store everything? I just have a shelf. And once the edition is done, I'll sleeve the edition, not individually. I'll put them all in a like with some sleeve with some, like a phone for to keep them firm so they don't bend and then I'll keep them upright, kind of like like books. Yeah. So I have them all on a shelf. How's your paper usage evolved, what kind of paper are you using now? I use, I pretty much exclusively use right now all this stuff from McLean's printmaking supplies. I think I can't remember which paper I'm using right now. It's one of their higher end papers. You like, is it thick? You like using thick paper? It's thick. Yeah, it's a thicker paper and I've played with some thinner papers before as well and some softer papers. I also need to have a paper that is resized so that limits, that limits my choices. Just because one, I haven't been officially trained in it and I don't want to buy a bunch of really expensive paper and screw it up. And plus it's not a, it's not a skill that, that I really feel I need to make my best work. I'm happy to use paper from people who really know what they're doing and can do this really well and I'm happy to use it. So, but I do like the thicker papers. It holds up a little bit better to the multiple printings and especially the layers of color. I will say though that the materials do help for quality, quality tools, quality materials. It will help alleviate frustration on your path to making this work. So, it's an investment, but less of an investment than a computer, like tools, get some good tools, you know, it'll last you a lifetime and computers will last you maybe, what, five years? It was true. Esthetics, I saw that a lot in the documentary. Tell me a bit about actually that documentary now was made. That was great. Aaron Morrell is the filmmaker and he came to me early on, this was many years ago. I can't remember when this was made. So he came to me probably around 2011, he 12, something like that and said, hey, I want to make a film. I love your work. I love to make a film. I was like, yeah, that sounds great. You know, just let me know and you know how those kinds of things are. It was a, for him that was a project of, you know, he didn't get paid. I mean, minimal, minimal payment, but he really wanted to do this and I was happy to do it. That's as simply as it came about. I mean, I was at an opening of one of my work and I remember I read one of my stories and he came up to me afterwards and told me what he wanted to do. And then a few years later we got together and we kind of hashed out what this project was going to be. And I was, I was kind of clear that I wanted to follow the whole creative process because for me, that was the most important thing I wanted to convey. And it's, and it's still kind of is and I think that I think it's one of the things that a little bit lacking as far as in the sphere of education. We learn lots of processes and we learn how to do a lot of things. But there's not as much attention on how, how to make the work that you want to make. Like why are you making the work that you want to make? Why are you using these, these processes? How is this going to help you to convey the things that you need to convey as an artist? You know, what is it that you want to convey as an artist? All of these things, all of those types of things I felt, at least in my experience, they were lacking in school, in the education system. And I see it now too, even still, that, you know, a lot of it is a sign, because a lot of it's assignment driven. And then, you know, a lot of, a lot of times things are workshop driven. People are going to go to a workshop and they're going to learn a process. And, I mean, and that's great. I mean, I don't want to begrudge anybody for doing that. And I hope, you know, they're, they're using this process. I feel like, foundationally, you want to know what you're doing, you know, and why you're doing it before you do it. I want you to make art. Yeah, absolutely. And you need to learn a process in order to do that. And that's, that's part and partial to, to this whole thing too, and I get it. But when we're kids, we don't know processes, but we're making art, you know, we're, we're expressing ourselves, there's no limits on what we're doing. We're not worried that we don't have all of these processes mastered before we feel like we can make adequate prints or an adequate drawing or painting. It's only when we, you know, we start getting to those early teen years where we start to like self analyze, they're better than me and I need to do this. And maybe if I learned this process, I would make better work and I don't know. So, but like that, that's again, that that's putting a lot of external pressure on the creation. It comes from the inside, you know, the focus is, the focus is on in the wrong, I guess, in my estimation, the focus is in the wrong place. As an artist, you want to express yourself. Yeah. Sure. You want to be able to, you know, draw really well, but ultimately you want to express yourself. The documentary really kind of showed an aesthetic, it was really aesthetically pleasing. You mean the filmmaking? Yeah. Yeah. It was great. He did such a good job. That was him. And that's the main input that I had on the film was that I wanted the story that I told to be analogous to the process of making the work because that story to me, again, this is how it speaks to me, you know, that story, after I told it, and like I didn't have any preconceived ideas when I told the story to my girls, you know, but after I finished that story, yeah, now it's speaking to me. Now I can, I can sit with it and be like, you know what, this is, this means something. You have to give up something in order to gain something. You have to give up this thing that is the most important thing to get this thing that you don't even know. How does that even happen? And what even pushes you to do that? Like, oh, my gosh, all of a sudden, this simple story that like I told my girls, not even, you know, just kind of became this, this thought provoking entity that mirrored the process of making a piece of art, at least in my mind, it did. And, and so that was my, that was my input for the film. And you'll, you'll see that if, when you watch the film, or if you watch the film that when I start telling the story, he'll go, you know, it goes through the process of making the, the print. Yeah. That was so how much of that, of that narrative in the documentary, how much of that is your own personal opinion on making work? Is it very close? I mean, it seems to me very close now that I've spoken to you. Yeah. I mean, it is. It's my opinion. I mean, I think that, you know, it's weird, you know, I've talked about this previously to in our discussion as well, but like it is, I guess I could say it's my opinion. And yeah, I do believe these things, arriving at those opinions, I like, how do I write, how did I arrive at those opinions? Like I arose at those opinions based on this story that I told. Like I didn't have, I didn't have fleshed out opinions about these certain things. I just told a story and my understanding of it shapes the person that I am, and you know, opinions and all. Now, my hope is that my opinions can change. Like I don't want to be stagnant either. You know, I had these, I have these wonderful moments over the course of my life where, you know, I have developed something or created something and it is reflected back at me. And it helps me grow as a person and helps me develop some ideas that helped me, helped me move forward. But you know what, just like in that story, there's a fish out there that, you know, that I've never seen, that I don't even know exists and the step I'm going to make, the next step I'm going to make, I don't know what that step is, you know? And so my opinions may change again and that's totally fine. I want to be open-minded enough to, to be ready to embrace that when it, when it happens. Yeah, I hope I win, I should say, yeah, win or if, but like when it happens. I have a, another print that I, that I made, it's called Bound to It. It is a, it's a Mokuhango print of this deer in this kind of gorge, Linville Gorge area here near Asheville. And I made this for this organization called outward bound. And so in the image is this larger than life deer, like in the mountains, obviously shouldn't be this large. And then in the foreground, there's this group of like normal sized deer looking at this other deer that the text in that image says seeing they were bound to it. And then being bound to it, what would they become? So my idea was that here's this group of deer and they see this thing that they would not have seen otherwise is, and you can't unsee something once you see it. So they see this and now there's aspiration. There is potential where there once was not about a month later, I went back to that image and I had put the moon in the sky is very pale, very pale moon because it's a daytime sky. I was like, you know what? I'm going to put a moon up in this guy. And the deer is looking at the moon. The large deer and it's like, okay, it's not just these deer looking at that large deer. If those deer were to become aspired to whatever that large deer is, so to speak, you know, metaphorically, great, but that's not the end either. The deer is looking at the moon. So even if those little three little deer weren't in the image, the text still works. And not only that, but why would it end there either? It's just a being open, just like when I see that thing, the next thing, when I encounter that next thing, I want to be, I want to be open enough to kind of like step into it. It's essentially defines where you're at, right, I mean, that's just always looking for that next door to go through and to. Yeah. And like I said, and like I said earlier, I know this is a podcast about mukahanga, maybe we've talked about that for maybe five minutes, but like, I, sorry, but you know, but yeah, I mean, if if my path takes me beyond mukahanga or to some other thing, so be it right now, I can't see that. I love this so much and it fits me so well. But you don't know what the world brings. Well, one question I have for you, which I'm thinking about, do you like, do you like being in galleries? Do you enjoy that, that side of it? You mean actually physically being in a gallery? Well, I mean, I knew you've done chief head shows, right? And you've been. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I love being in galleries. I mean, it's, it's really nice and I'm, and I'm flattered. You know, the way I approach it is, I just, yeah, I'm just, I'm just grateful. It was like, you want to show my work and people want to buy it? Yeah. You sign me up and then we have an opening and people want to talk to me about my work. It's, it's exhausting sometimes, but I do, I love it, you know, because I talk to them about the same kind of stuff I talk, I'm talking to you about like, I don't want to just talk about my work. I want to inspire you, these people looking at the work, it's like, there's, there's more to you. I've got to just kind of uncover that, right? I love having conversations like that with people in galleries. And when I'm not in the gallery, I'm hoping my work has those conversations with people. Yeah. People understand Mo Kong, your audience see, they see your work, but then they, how do they understand the process? Yeah. I mean, that's, that's a tricky one. I don't think that everybody does, obviously a lot of my galleries, they'll have a set of wood blocks and I've, and I've gone over it with the gallery directors and so they all, they generally know the ones that, you know, that, how Mo Kong is done and I'll occasionally do talks and visits to galleries and I'll do demonstrations and question and answers and sometimes I'll tell stories and those types of events so that people can get a handle on, on that, you know, I try, I've been putting together some, again, some videos so people can understand how it happens because I think this is not just with Mo Konga, but I think it's with printmaking in general. There's a lot of, for people who go into galleries and who, who support the arts, they don't always know like everything that goes into making a print is a lot, there's a lot of work. I mean, it's small, it's not a painting, you know, they don't know what goes, what goes into it and, and starting to understand what goes into it really kind of helps on a practical level add value to, to the work and so, and so that's important to do and so I like doing that because it doesn't just help me, it helps, it helps all printmakers and people to understand like boy, this is a lot of effort for one image. Are you kidding me, you're going to, but yeah, but I, I like, you know, I like, I like the gallery scene well enough. I mean, I don't go, I don't go out of my way all the time for it. I usually wait for galleries to approach me, for instance, if they want to show my work. I don't, I don't press, I don't press galleries, but that's just me. Um, finally, why is, why is Mo Konga important to you or just in general? Oh man, I, I think it's, well, well one it's important for me because I resonate with it. You know, my, my, my, my being, my energetic being resonates with this way of making art. And if it didn't, if there was no Mo Konga, then I'd probably be doing something else. But, but this process, it resonates with me. And I think it's important for a lot of reasons. One is anytime you work with natural materials, you, you're inspired to, to be a part of what that natural material has to offer, you know, water has an essence. It has a way that it behaves. It's natural and that connects us to the natural world. Wood is a natural material. The way that it grows, the patterns and the grains and the way in which it can be carved. You know, if you, if you're open to it, it can, it can come out in the work, this natural aspect that kind of also can connect us to the world. Same with our pigments, natural pigments. They're ground from materials in the earth. They behave in a certain way. They're granular, you know, they're heavy, they're earthy and, you know, you put these things together and, you know, you have this really natural piece of, of art that if you can allow it, it has the potential to connect us to the natural world. I think that's important. The other thing I think is important about mokuhanga is, is how it's made. The process by which it's made as an art making process. It's a sustainable process, you know, by all accounts. It's a safe process by all accounts. So in all of those ways, mokuhanga is, is important as a printmaking process. And printmaking itself is important as, as a process, because you can create multiples of something to share with people. And when you create something like this, you are using your hands at every step of the way. I'm not using a computer. You can. I'm not saying you don't, or to, or to not. But again, these are, these are, this is what I think is in the potential here. Every time you put another layer of some other, of some other thing between you and the in viewer, it creates more of a, of a fog, like that imperceptible subtle difference, that you're not going to be able to put your finger on. But, but a process like mokuhanga, it's like painting. You are making an image with your own hand. And so the artist's energy is in the print. It is the, it is the same with any handmade piece of art. When you see art in person, it resonates with that artist's energy. If it's created by their hand, if it is not created by their hand, it does not resonate with the same energy. Now, believe that or not, because I can't prove it to you, but I have my personal experiences with it, and I have my own sensitivities. And so this is how I feel about it. And I do think that that's important, and I think that people respond to it. And I think that, I think that that's important to carry on and move forward with that, not the loose eye of that. And that's why, you know, using mokuhanga tools or certain tools, Japanese tools or a bar. And these things kind of make it very unique, but also tactile. Absolutely. I mean, they're developed for practical, practical purposes to produce these, these images. But they still allow for the energetics of the artist to be put into the image that's created. That's a beautiful thing. Thank you, Andy. Yeah, no. Thank you for taking the time to do this. I mean, it's nice that it's nice that you're doing that. So thank you. The unfinished print is a popular reproduction written, produced, and edited by Andre Zetarosni. If you're able to, please support the podcast by giving a review and rating. You can also support the unfinished print and my own mokuhanga through my Instagram page at Andre Zetarosniprints. Any questions or concerns, you can reach me through email at theunfinishedprint@gmail.com. Also, I'd like to thank all of my guests, past and present, for taking the time from their busy lives to have a conversation about mokuhanga. Without you, there wouldn't be the unfinished print. So thank you. [MUSIC]
