From the hotel room, the lakeshore, the onset–Fuji-san filled my vision: vast, bold (but never brash), framed by the bare, curved branches and the frail, weather-worn grass after the depths of winter. It was hard not to be captivated. It simply sat there. Still.

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My printmaking practice has long favoured intricate, abstract linocuts–graphic works defined by strong lines and deliberate contrast of negative and positive space, light and dark. Yet the rigidity of linocut (or perhaps of my own hand) has left me yearning for something gentler; a moment to pause, to contemplate and reveal a softer side.

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Japan arrived at that juncture. The quiet cadence of Fujikawaguchiko called me back to the fundamentals of printmaking: mark making, line, paper, composition, and drawing.

Listening to the trees sway at Fujikawaguchiko is a drawing in two parts. One line formed by tiny pin pricks perforating the substrate and visible only when the light breaks through. The other, a graphic echo anchoring the invisible. Together they hold the memory of the bare trees and the wind moving through–left to right, right to left, circling, always returning.

My process continues to be slow and meditative–tiny marks accumulating movement. It is quiet work, reaching back to the stillness felt beneath Fuji-san.

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Drawing on Japanese Kozo.