A life among fishes

Introduction

Introduction I feel I was born with a natural affinity for the sea. My earliest memory is of the windy waterfront along San Francisco’s Marina with graceful sailboats working their way through the wind and tide towards the Golden Gate. I still have an image of the sounds and smells of that day. Perhaps I’m a bit of a selkie fowk — Scottish legendary people who live as seals, shed their skin and come ashore as humans.

This love of the sea was further reinforced when we moved to Sausalito when I was eight. I spent much of my youth dinking around the old boats and waterfront. I fished, swam, rowed, and sailed year around. Both my parents worked, so I spent my days exploring, especially when school was out. This was before the days of “helicopter parents.” As long as I reappeared for dinner, all was fine.

During high school I spent my spare time racing sailboats and fishing.

My summer job was as a deckhand on a commercial salmon boat fishing primarily between Pt. Reyes and the Farallon Islands.

When I got to college, I was a creative, but average undergraduate student in biology at the University of Redlands. Once I figured out I could go to graduate school in fisheries, I became highly motivated and focused. Being married with a young son also forced focus and a degree of maturity.

In the fall of 1968 we headed forth to Humboldt State University so I could work on a master's degree in fisheries. There I met fellow student Tom Sharp who showed a group of us how to print fish. Tom had seen a gyotaku demonstration in the San Francisco Bay Area. My lifelong passion for fish and my creative nature made my initial encounter with gyotaku “love at first sight.” As a graduate student in fisheries, I had an unending stream of fish to print. With fellow graduate students I explored the Japanese roots of the art, discovered suitable materials, and developed my own delicate style. The more I printed, the more I came to see and appreciate textures and forms in nature.

After I obtained my fisheries degree, we joined the Peace Corps in Chile.

I taught ichthyology, limnology and aquaculture courses at the Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso for nearly two years. Of course, I kept printing fish.

We returned to California in 1972 to start my 35-year career as a Marine

Fisheries Specialist at the University of California, Davis. I also finished my doctorate in human ecology at UC Davis. Fish surrounded me throughout my career and gyotaku provided a satisfying outlet for the artistic side of my brain.

Some art books can be a bit like an exhibition catalog, but I have tried to make this one more personal. When I imagined this book, it felt very selfcentered and a bit uncomfortable to me. However, once I plunged into the project, family, friends and fellow artists were quite supportive and eager to see the result. That energized me and I am pleased to share this creative side of me with others. My research and technical experiences are documented in the scientific articles I published during my University of California marine fisheries career. At the same time, I was printing fish for fifty years and this book records my journey.

Back in 1984, I wrote an article for Oceans Magazine and the excerpt below is still very relevant to me today.

“A few times my works has taken on a solemnity I never expected. Once the owner of a pond full of valuable koi carp lost many of his fish because of a pump failure and disease. The family immediately called me and asked that I do prints of his prized fish. Another time an aquarium storeowner called to request a print of his deceased longtime companion, a Brazilian Arawana.

Incidents like these point up the characteristic fascination of gyotaku. It is a technique that allows one to make an exact, literal record of objects and events while directing the viewer’s perception of them through selection and composition. The image is accurate and “true” but can be shaped so as to reveal something new about its subject. It is this sort of communication that any artist seeks” I hope you enjoy sharing and learning something from my experience.

I will start by explaining a bit about gyotaku history and methods to help you appreciate the art form and understand the images. Then we move on to chronological-ordered descriptions of my many unique experiences with gyotaku. Some of these are humorous and others are emotional. The short anecdotes are all illustrated with fish prints relevant to the event.

7

A Life Among Fishes

About Gyotaku — Japanese Fish Printing I often encounter people seeing my fish prints for the first time and they have no idea how they are done. Visitors think they are woodblock prints or painstakingly completed illustrations. When I describe the process, they often exclaim, “You use the real fish!” So here is a bit of information to clarify how these mono prints are done.

Japanese fish printing, or gyotaku, was probably first done in the mid-1800s in Japan to celebrate fishes caught for a samurai lord’s feast.

The term comes from gyo which means fish and taku which means rubbing or impression. While gyotaku is often associated with fish, it really is a set of printing techniques that are applied to a wide variety of subjects. Examples include shellfish, plants, fossils, rocks, mammals, and man-made objects.

The techniques may have evolved from old Chinese stone rubbing processes dating back 2000 years or, more likely, were created independently in Japan during the mid-nineteenth century. This would make gyotaku one of Japan’s youngest art forms. The oldest known fish print is in the Homma Museum in Sakata City in Yamagata Prefecture. The combination of the importance of seafood, angling, and printmaking in Japan led to development of the art form there.

Dr. Yoshio Hiyama, Tokyo University Professor of Fisheries Biology and founder of Gyotaku-no-kai.

Over the past 70 years, artists in Japan and elsewhere have refined these techniques into a sophisticated art form. Among the most important early gyotaku artists was Kouyou Inada who mastered indirect gyotaku methods in the 1940s and 1950s. Inada mentored current master printer Boshu Nagase who has further refined and shared the methods.

The key person in bringing gyotaku to North America was Dr. Yoshio Hiyama, a fellow marine fisheries biologist at Tokyo University.

He was one of the founders of Gyotaku-no-kai, an organization of Japanese fish printers. Dr. Hiyama partnered with Mrs. John Roemhild Canning, scientific illustrator and artist with the Smithsonian, to curate a show of gyotaku at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City in 1956. In 1964 Janet Canning helped Dr. Hiyama publish an English language version of his seminal work, Gyotaku: 12

Dr. Hiyama’s 1964 book served as our early guide to the art.

Gyotaku Methods and Techniques

19

A Life Among Fishes

Direct Gyotaku Instructions with Water-soluble Inks

Materials & set up.

Apply ink head to tail.

Materials 1. Fish. If you or someone else catches the fish, keep it chilled on ice for up to 48 hours. Otherwise, wrap the fish securely and freeze; it will print well when thawed. If you are buying fish, look for bright eyes, red gill color, and little or no damage. Many Asian markets specialize in whole fish.

Select fish that are relatively flat and have prominent scales, spines, and fins. Good choices for beginners are perch, bluegill, bass, rockfish, small snappers, and flounders (5-10 inches). Tuna, salmon, and trout are more challenging.

2. Salt or dish detergent for cleaning off the fish.

3. Water-soluble block printing inks such as those made by Speedball®, available from most art stores or online art supply sites. I prefer black to start with to practice basic techniques, but these inks are available in a wide range of colors.

4. Strong but flexible papers made in Asia for your final prints: examples include mulberry, kozo, unryu, and goyu. Make sure you have set up your printing area with newspaper or plastic to protect the table surface.

20

5. If you prefer to print on fabric, choose finely woven materials such as silk, fine cotton, muslin or synthetics (T-shirts will work).

6. Speedball® Fabric Block Printing Ink is a good choice for printing on fabric.

7. A minimum of two brushes: one large flat bright brush (size 10; ½” to 1”) for applying ink to the fish and one small brush (size 0 or smaller) for painting the eyes. I recommend a different brush for each color used in the fish print and different sized brushes if you are doing very small or large fish.

8. Plastalina® or other modeling clay to support the fins.

9. Small pins or super glue to hold the fins in place.

10. Newsprint or paper towels for practice prints.

A Life Among Fishes

El Gringo Loco In 1992 I joined a group of faculty and graduates of the Veterinary Medicine School at UC Davis for a five-day fishing trip to the Sea of Cortez.

They chartered a very old Mexican shrimp trawler that had been retrofitted for sports fishing. I’m sure it was the most economical choice for a fishing charter.

We left from Loreto on a hot April day and headed south pulling a group of small pangas (fishing skiffs) behind us. Unlimited beer and drinks were available from an old-fashioned coke machine on deck. I enjoyed reading Log of the Sea of Cortez by John Steinbeck as we traveled in our search for fish. We were targeting yellowtail, wahoo, snappers, and dorado rather than billfish.

On the first day we dispersed, two per small boat. Most of us caught some snappers and dorado, but one pair inadvertently hooked up a blue marlin. On their lightweight equipment it took about three hours to land the 300-pound fish. By then the fish and the anglers were near death. The captain decided to keep the fish because of its poor likelihood of survival and his fish hold was full of ice to keep it chilled.

As the anglers headed towards the mother vessel, they were yelling at me that I needed to print the fish. When the blue marlin hit the deck, I brought out my brushes, fabric paints and muslin. Of course the Mexican crew had never seen such a crazy activity and I was immediately nicknamed “el gringo loco” for the rest of the trip. I was able to make a couple of prints on the pitching wet deck, much to everyone’s amazement.

We ate marlin all week for two or three meals a day!

58

Fish Printing Adventures and Anecdotes

Blue Marlin. Makaira nigricans. 1992. Sea of Cortez, Mexico. Direct print. 42� x 36�

Printed onboard fishing vessel. Fabric paint on muslin.

59

A Life Among Fishes

Generations The boy spends hours studying the bay every day Some gray, still mornings The flat slate-like surface ripples As the dark black vessel slides slowly eastward towing a leviathan harpooned from the sea.

Headed for Richmond where they built ships for war. then slaughtered whales for products of yore.

One day the boy will meet the whaler named Hunter A skilled predator with a sense of wonder.

But for now the boy gives it no thought as he grows up by the sea.

The boy becomes a young man and begins his life on the sea.

Few whales does he see.

Are they so few?

Have they fled the harpoon’s barb?

Soon Hunter searches no more for the great mammals of the sea.

Only the skeleton of the whale’s final destination lies rotting in the bay.

Few remember their slow last journey in through the Golden Gate Except that young boy who stares at the bay and sees images from his youth.

Nearly two generations have passed since the last whales slid limply across the bay.

The boy’s grandchildren see whales all year round They believe this is the way it always has been.

Their grandfather smiles And enjoys a moment of hope.

124

Right: Striped Bass Head. Morone saxatilis. 2014. San Francisco Bay, California. Direct print. 24” x 34”

Stories and Poems

125

A Life Among Fishes

For Christy My chest swelled with happiness watching your tears of joy as you cast your vote for Her. Finally a woman.

Hope for compassion and wisdom.

But just a few short hours later an orange cock with angry jowls turned your tears of joy to a gray rain of despair.

Who knew that this was not the time for a woman?

My dear love, you are not alone.

Millions of feet will hit the cement to turn this lament into action to bring victory home.

Who knew that race was a lesser barrier than gender?

Hope we live to see the day a woman Shows us all the totality of being human.

11/12/16

Right: Truth and Compassion Wins. 2017. Collage of Direct prints. 25� x 35�

132

Stories and Poems

133

A Life Among Fishes

School of Rays. Raja clavata. 2001. Nags Head, North Carolina. Direct print. 44” x 32” 148

Fishes of Two Hemispheres — Northern Hemisphere

Red Irish Lords. Hemilepidotus hemilepidotus. 2007. Port Lions, Kodiak Island, Alaska.

Indirect print. 37” x 26” 149

A Life Among Fishes

Other Uses of Gyotaku

M

any artists reproduce their original art using a giclee process. The original piece is photo-scanned at high resolution and then reproduced on paper, canvas or other materials. This is either done as numbered limited editions or unlimited on demand reproductions. I found those options relatively unappealing because the purchaser would have to frame the reproduction. Instead I have chosen different paths to make functionally useful decorative reproductions available in several forms including shirts, tiles, lampshades, and posters. I have also created originals gyotaku on silk scarves and onesies.

Silk Scarf of Flyingfish. 14� x 70�

168