Bill Ritchie's design work in Hawaii
the collection of
Masami Teraoka Collection
Active and Passive sides of Mini Halfwood Press No. 42
Legacy Mini Halfwood Press #42
Specifications: Made in 2009. Serial Number 60042 of the 2004-2009 Legacy Halfwood Press series. Rollers are 1.5 x 5.75 inches top and bottom. The bed is 1/4 x 6 x 17 inches in polycarbonate (the standard); overall length is 17.5 inches; overall width is 9 inches; overall height is 10 inches; weight, 12 lbs.; drive wheel is 8 inches diameter in stainless steel; the woods used are black walnut base with ipe cladding steel, walnut hood capped with ipe. The instrument box is poplar, baltic birch trimmed in ipe. Included are felts, copper plate, Allen Wrench, User's Manual (with an excerpt from the out-of-print, Halfwood Press-The Story, now available as a Kindle book) and DVD.
Masami was the first person to buy
a WeeWoodie Rembrandt press
The parts on the left are Masami's WeeWoodie Rembrandt Press before assembly.
He bought this press for his daughter - a preschool student in 2012.
Specifications: DIY WeeWoodie Rembrandt Press Kit comes as 20-pieces and includes a pre-carved linoleum printing plate and comic-style user manual, available online free. Assembled, the press has a 3 1/2" wide printing bed with felts, gripper pads, and tools for assembling with screws. Note that small parts present a choking hazard and assembly is best if with the help of teens or adults.
Masami's third press:
Mariner Halfwood Press No. 9
Active and passive sides of Mariner No. 9 with fan mail on Facebook 200519
Specifications: Made in 2015. MarinerHalfwood Press. Serial No. 9. Dark American walnut with laminated dark wenge core. Twelve-inch wide bed, 34 inches long, rack driven; synchronous pressure screws. Rollers are 3-inch diameter solid steel, top and bottom. Driving wheel is stainless steel 16" inches diameter. Geared and chain-driven driving the rack on the bed provide a 12:1 mechanical advantage. Included are three felts, adusting Allan wrcnches, user manual, designer's book "A Printmaker's Tale," and PressGhost in a 4 Mb. thumb drive. Masami requested a 1" grid be drawn on the bed to assist in alignment of plates and paper.
About Masami Teraoka: (from the The McKinney Avenue Contemporary Art Gallery Website)
Masami Teraokawas born in 1936 in Onomichi, Hiroshima-ken, Japan. He graduated in 1959 with a B.A. in aesthetics from Kwansei Gakuin University, and continued his education to receive a B.F.A. and an M.F.A. from Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1968. Integrating reality with fantasy, humor with commentary, and history with the present became his working challenge. His early paintings are often focused on the clash of his two cultures- East and West. Series such as McDonald's Hamburgers Invading Japan and 31 Flavors Invading Japan characterize some themes in his work. In the 1980's, Teraoka's watercolors became large scale in an effort to depict the subject of AIDS. Since the late 1990's, he has been producing large-scale narrative work addressing social and political issues, especially the sexual abuse of children by priests. His recent large-scale paintings are inspired by Renaissance painting but continue the narrative quality and visual conventions of Japanese woodblock prints.
Teraoka has been the subject of more than 70 solo exhibitions, many of which have traveled extensively, including those organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1980, The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu in 1988, and the Yale University Art Gallery in 1998. In 1996 he was featured in a solo exhibition at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, The Smithsonian Institution and in 1997 at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. His work can also be seen in more than 50 public collections worldwide, including the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; The Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Modern in London, the Queensland Art Gallery in Australia, and the Gallery of Modern Art in Scotland. Teraoka is represented by Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco, Samuel Freeman Gallery in Los Angeles and Art Amalgamated Gallery in New York.
Comment: Masami saw the Mini on the Web, and emailed me for more information. After a few samples of my online support, he ordered one in December of 2008 and took delivery two months later plus supplies and copper. He had trouble with his first plate, so he sent it to me and I printed it and sent it back. Later he sent his press for refurbishing, and I made some improvements. He was delighted with the results. Learn more about Masami Teraoka on his Website. Later, after the birth of his daughter, Masami saw the WeeWoodie Rembrandt Press in my newsletter, and he told me he would like to get one for her; he added. "If it works, other kids at her school would be interested." The first WeeWoodie Rembrandt Press went to their family on March 3, 2014. He wrote: "Wow! We are first wood press customers! How exciting!" Two years later, Masami discovered acrylic plates and found that they were more appropriate to his chosen images and style; then he wanted a larger press and ordered the Mariner.
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