Egret

In 1987 Brown established his own business doing work with wood: post and beam barns, new house construction, renovations, additions, lots of kitchen cabinetry. Cabinet work led to the construction of a shop which is where he now makes his woodblock prints. Brown’s print-making career owes much to his carpentry years. Learning to work with wood, to line things up and judge by eye, to draw up plans and implement them into 3 dimensions, this was in many ways his printmaking apprenticeship.

Self-taught in my printmaking, my pursuit in the first few years was mostly in isolation. Being able to spend time with Japanese prints, at home, with friends and neighbors who own prints, at museums, through books, was how I learned in those formative years. The development of the internet towards the end of the 1990’s later helped immensely in opening for me opportunities to expand my knowledge and contacts, both technical and aesthetic (as well as in fostering a wider adoption of this esoteric printing method worldwide).  In my craft I feel grateful to the work and discoveries of generations of artists and craftsmen, many Japanese but not all.