christmas cards

Time passes very quickly for me these days, but never so fast as when I notice that it's time to make my holiday greeting cards. I try to get Christmas cards posted before the end of November, because at this time of the year, even air mail delivery to overseas addresses can be delayed beyond belief.

The etegami pictured here is the one I drew for Christmas 2007. It depicts the berries of the mountain ash (rowan) tree, each berry covered with a cap of snow. Mountain ash is one of my favorite trees, and while they grow profusely in the mountains of Hokkaido, they are also a favorite for planting along city streets. The berries start out pale and yellow, hardly noticeable in the green foliage, but by the end of fall, when the leaves have dropped off the branches and it begins to snow, the berries are bright, bright red.

Snow is a tricky thing to depict on a white card. I added blue shadows to make the snow more distinct, but this didn't show up very well in digital form. Nevertheless, it remains one of my favorite etegami. In my next post, I want to write about nengajou, the New Year cards that are traditionally exchanged in Japan. All the mail art I do now has its roots in the tradition of nengajou. Stay tuned!

redefining failure

I once received an email from a woman who confessed she had gotten discouraged by her brief encounter with etegami because it was a "one-shot deal." I assume she meant that the success or failure of a piece often becomes apparent with the first few strokes, and there's simply no way to un-do the damage. Not to mention that a perfectly good drawing can be ruined when you add the words. Or sadder yet, a poorly placed or mis-pressed name seal can mar an otherwise well-balanced piece at the very, very end. I am familiar with the frustration this causes, and have filled numerous trash bags with torn-up etegami to prove it.

When I first started Etegami, I was advised that if I was unhappy with a piece, I should set it aside for a time. It often happens that a piece which seems all "wrong" will not look wrong at all when you come back to it later. I've saved a lot of etegami from oblivion this way. But I came to realize that there was something else-- something more troubling-- going on each time I judged one of my etegami a success or failure. I was looking at my work and thinking: "Does this piece reflect well on me?" or, "Will the receiver admire me for this?" And I recognized that there was something very wrong, very un-Etegami, in those thoughts. Etegami is not about making yourself look good. Etegami is about enjoying the process, and about wanting the receiver to feel good, amused, comforted, or maybe stimulated to thought.

I've mentioned before that the motto of the modern Etegami movement can be summarized as: "Clumsy makes good Etegami." Anyone can draw etegami. You certainly don't need to be an artist, and you don't need to have what the world calls talent. The more unselfconscious the mind and unrefined the skills, the more charm an etegami often has. I confess I am weak. Praise is as sweet as honey. But in craving honey I am in danger of losing the Etegami spirit.

This is all by way of explaining the attached photo. Many things went "wrong" with this drawing of a small orange and yellow pumpkin. Almost from the beginning, I was unhappy with the shape. Then I didn't wait for the sumi outline to dry before I started coloring it, so the outline got smeared. By the time I added the words, I had given up on it, so I wrote sloppily and overlapped the drawing, which I usually try not to do. I set it aside for a time, and later decided the squashed drawing and sloppy writing had a sort of charm. Then, as I was writing out the address of a new friend, I inadvertently laid the card face down on a surface spotted from a rubber air mail stamp, and the red ink transferred to the drawing. There was no way to un-do it. What to do? What to do?! I caught myself thinking, "How is this etegami going to reflect on me?" And that did it. I was not going to let my vanity keep me from sending this card. "You don't need talent to draw etegami," I had written in my brief message on the other side. So there was no reason to hesitate. Hopefully this clumsy card will encourage my new friend to give etegami a try. And if not, it may at least amuse her.

the person at the other end

I spent a morning last weekend reading the September, October and November issues of Etegami magazine (published by the Japan Etegami Society) that I'd been too busy to give proper attention to when they first arrived. It was the title of the September issue that captured my eye, and then my heart. The Japanese title was really quite poetic, but the best translation I can come up with at the moment is: "The Joy of Having Someone who Welcomes Your Etegami."

In my last post, I reviewed the basics of etegami. But there is another-- perhaps more important-- "basic" of etegami: The relationship between the sender and the receiver. Etegami is a form of communication from the heart, from one person to another. A great deal of the value of Etegami is in the fact that there is someone at the other end to welcome it, and ideally, the artist draws each work with the intended recipient in mind.

The sunflower etegami posted here is accompanied by words which mean "Puddle of Sunshine." I drew it to cheer up a friend who loves sunflowers. As the volume of my mailart exchange grows and grows, this is one basic of etegami that I hope I never, ever forget.

back to the basics

It's been a while since I posted a traditional etegami, so I thought it was time to review the basics. Etegami has very few rules, but there are certain characteristics that combine to make it what it is, and not some other kind of art.

Traditional etegami is: (1) hand-drawn artwork accompanied by hand-drawn words on postcards, and (2) usually depicts subjects from everyday life, especially those that reflect the changing of the seasons.

The equipment for traditional etegami usually includes: (1) absorbent washi postcards (2) ink brushes of various lengths and thickness (3) sumi ink (4) gansai paints (5) a name seal to affix to the work when it's finished.

The method for traditional etegami usually involves: (1) "living lines"~the wobbly, blotchy lines of inconsistent thickness that result from very, very slow strokes of the ink brush when forming the outline of the subject (2) a brief session of "living lines practice" every time you sit down to make etegami (3) "laying" the color on the card, rather than making strokes, and letting it spread naturally according to the character of the washi paper used (4) a limited selection of colors for each work, making the colors darker or lighter by judicious use of water, rather than by mixing different colors together (5) leaving areas of the drawing uncolored, rather than completely filling it in.

Having listed all these characteristics, I should say that etegami can be done on any kind of paper with any kind of tools, and if you use a paint brush on non-absorbent paper, you will have to use strokes to color it. Many etegami artists paint scenery, especially as a kind of picture-diary when they travel. But it isn't etegami without the addition of words. And it isn't really etegami unless it is meant to be posted to someone, or is at least in a form that can be posted at any time. Digital artwork accompanied by words and emailed to someone could be called etegami, as nontraditional as that form is. And you've seen my recent attempts to turn collage art into another nontraditional form of etegami.

The autumn-themed etegami I posted above depicts a kabocha, or Japanese pumpkin. And the accompanying words say exactly that: Japanese Kabocha. No humor, poetry, or delicate nuances on this one.

etegami collages

I've been going a little bit crazy over collages lately, thanks to being stimulated by the works of Western mail artists, who tend to be very collagic (? well, you know what I mean). My versions are always a combination of pictures and words, which technically qualifies them as Etegami. But I wasn't certain enough of this interpretation to introduce the collages on this blog. Then, the other day, I stumbled onto a blog about etegami made with fabric fragments. It was one more in a series of eye-opening encounters for me. You'll have to see these for yourself. The blog, called Ponpoko's Etegami, is in Japanese, but I think you will be able to see the images. Click here. The pictures are formed with bits of cloth and yarn. Sometimes, the artist writes the accompanying words by ink brush, and other times she forms them from yarn or fabric. If these delightful postcards can be called etegami, then my collages certainly can. If any readers of this blog are more comfortable working with fabric than with ink brushes and paints, you won't find me resisting that approach anymore. Just don't forget the element of words. The image I posted here is a collage of photos pasted onto a background made from the kind of hand-dyed wispy washi used in the art of chigiri-e, which I've mentioned in previous posts.

make your own name seal

If you already have an interest in traditional Japanese Art, you probably realize how important that final pressing of the name stamp is to the overall appearance and balance of the work. And if this blog is your first exposure to Etegami, you probably noticed, and were curious about, the name seal that is always pressed somewhere on the card in red ink. The common name for these name seals is hanko. They are usually carved with the hiragana sign for the first syllable in the artist's given name. Sometimes they are carved with the entire given name, and sometimes they are carved with other words that enhance the artwork, such as the character for "Spring," or "Welcome the New Year," or something else that applies to the season.

If you go to an art supply or stationery store in Japan, you are likely to find a nice collection of ready-made hobby hanko, even ones that have a cozy, home-made feel to them. Using store-bought seals is a great option, especially if you are a beginner. But soon you are sure to get the itch for a name seal of your own design and carving.

Furthermore, you may be one of those people whose name begins with a syllable that is nowhere to be found among the racks of commercially produced name seals. I belong to this group. My name begins with the syllable De (Te with two dashes next to it), and I haven't met a Japanese person yet whose given name starts with that syllable. So from the beginning, I had to make my own hanko. I did this the way most etegami artists do, by carving my syllable into a rubber eraser.

The photo posted at the top was scanned from an introductory Etegami textbook, and illustrates the steps to making a hanko. The steps are very simple: (1) Draw your initial or syllable on a smooth piece of paper (tracing paper is good) with a soft lead pencil. (2) Press the drawing against a clean, flat piece of eraser, and rub gently till the drawing has transferred from the paper to the eraser. The transfer will be a mirror image. (3) Using a sharp craft knife or carving tool, cut away the white part, or alternatively, cut away the dark part, depending on the effect you desire. (4) Ink the seal and press on paper to see where you still need to cut away. Keep doing this till you are satisfied. If you want to start over, slice off the layer you were working on, and go through the steps again.

I've attached a photo of some of my own hand-made hanko. Some represent my name in various forms (De, DeBi, DeBoRa, dd) and others are images (slice of watermelon, mouse's paw print, human foot print, leaf, star, wind chime). I use the images to add humor or otherwise personalize certain etegami. They're easy and fun to do.

a broccoli exhibit

I stumbled across a delightful post about etegami the other day and received permission to share the link with you. The blog itself is called Daily Onigiri and features news from Japan, but the post that caught my eye was titled "Etegami: Japanese Picture Letters," and what made it special were the photos of an etegami exhibit at a local train station. Dozens of etegami focused on just one subject: Broccoli! I've seen many, many etegami exhibits, even exhibits focused on one theme (such as war memories), but I have never seen an exhibit focused on a single subject before. It was visual proof of what I am always saying, that each etegami is a unique work of art. Not only because each etegami artist internalizes what he sees differently and may have different skills or even tools for expressing it, but also because each head of broccoli-- even though it may at first appear like a clone of every other broccoli-- is different from the others. Isn't it cool how each etegami in the exhibit has its own character?