Claire Cuccio PhD: Driven By Personal Relationships

When studying mokuhanga, whether you're an academic, a creator, or for general interest, there are some scholars and academics that are mandatory in your studies. Claire Cuccio is that particular scholar. Currently based in Seattle, and working in international education for 20 years, Claire has been a resident in Asia as an Asian print and handcraft culture specialist and cultural heritage educator. While also working for the International Mokuhanga Conference and conducting research on Nepalese woodblock print culture, Claire has been an asset to the mokuhanga community for some time. On this episode I speak with Claire about how she got involved in studying print culture in Japan and Asia. We talk on the sensibility of mokuhanga and how Claire is driven by her personal relationships. We also discuss the economics of mokuhanga history and her work with Nepalese printmaker, Kabi Raj Lama. Please follow The Unfinished Print and my own mokuhanga work on Instagram @andrezadoroznyprints or email me at [e-mail] Notes: may contain a hyperlink. Simply click on the highlighted word or phrase. Artists works follow after the note. Pieces are mokuhanga unless otherwise noted. Claire Cuccio - her International Mokuhanga Conference lecture from 2022 can be found, here. Claire's work with woodpaperhand can be found here which contains links to many of her projects and lectures. Claire's lecture at the Library of Congress about Japanese Woodblock Printing, here. The New Yorker - is a weekly magazine which began publishing in 1925 in the United States. It is published by Condé Nast. It is a magazine that covers American and world politics, culture, and arts from around the world, and New York City. Washington University in St. Louis - is an acclaimed private research university located in St Louis, Missouri, USA. It has an edownment of 13.3 billion. The school covers many subjects and career paths such as medicine and law. More information can be found on their website, here. Myōjō - (明星) was a monthly literary and arts magazine based in Japan. It began publication in 1900 but ended its run in 1908. It was published by Shinshisha. It was revived twice from 1921-1927, and from 1947-49 by different publishers. The magazine was made famous because of the first sōsaku hanga print ever made by Yamamoto Kanae, "The Fisherman." Myōjō cover from February, 1901 Harpers - is a monthly magazine in the United States, published by Harper Collins and was founded in 1850. The magazine covers politics, culture, art, history amongst other subjects. More info can be found, here. Yosano Akiko (1878-1942) - was the pen name of Shō Hō, a Japanese poet, pacifict and feminist. Her work was in the tanka format of poetry, which is 5-7-5-7-7. The Masterclass website has an interesting article describing tanka poetry, here. Tekkan Yosano (1873-1935)- was the husband of Yosano Akiko. He too was a poet and activist in early Twentieth Century Japan. As Claire mentions in her interview, Tekkan founded Myōjō in 1900. sōsaku-hanga - or creative prints, is a style of printmaking which is predominantly, although not exclusively, prints made by one person. It started in the early twentieth century in Japan, in the same period as the shin-hanga movement. The artist designs, carves, and prints their own works. The designs, especially in the early days, may seem rudimentary but the creation of self-made prints was a breakthrough for printmakers moving away from where only a select group of carvers, printers and publishers created woodblock prints. Fujishima Takeji (1867-1943) - was a Japanese painter. He studied Western painting (yōga) in the Romantic and impressionistic styles, but also painted Japanese themes. He made mokuhanga during the sōsaku hanga period of Japanese printing, carved and printed himself. Dawn Drizzle at Kawaramachi (1934) Ishii Hakutei (1882-1958) - was a Japanese painter who studied Western style painting. He became editor of the first incarnation of Myōjō in 1900, helping to publish Kanae's "Fisherman" print. Hakutei is famous for his Twelve Views of Tōkyō prints which he printed himself. Twelve Views of Tōkyō: Yanagibashi (1910) Kyoto Consortium for Japanese Studies (KCJS) - located on the campus at Doshisha University, the KCJS is a fully immersive langauge school both culturally and linguistically. It has 13 member universities from the United States. More info can be found, here. Henry Smith II - is a professor emeritus at Columbia University. The article he wrote about the hanmoto system and Watanabe Shōzaburō (1885-1962) can be found, here. Rebecca Salter - is the President of The Royal Academy of Arts, in London, England. She is also an artist who has written two books about Japanese woodblock printing, Japanese Woodblock Printing (2001), and Japanese Popular Prints (2006). She worked with the Satō Woodblock Print Workshop, documenting their...