Biography
Faith Stone is a Hawaii-based mokuhanga printmaker whose work preserves and revitalizes the tradition of Buddhist woodblock printing within the contemporary mokuhanga movement. Based in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii, she creates American Buddhist Art through the traditional Japanese method of hand-carved and hand-printed woodblock prints.
Stone's path to mokuhanga began with a fortuitous discovery: Donkey Mill Art Center, the printmaking studio founded by master printer Hiroki Morinoue, was located just ten minutes from her home. When she visited and told Morinoue she had been searching for a mokuhanga teacher for years, he agreed to take her on as a student. Under his guidance, she developed the technical skills and philosophical understanding that now inform her distinctive practice.
Her prints feature Buddhist and Hindu deities, goddesses, and spiritual imagery rendered through mokuhanga, connecting her work to the centuries-old tradition of devotional woodblock printing that flourished across East Asia. Subjects include Black Tara, Saraswathi, Durga, Vajrasattva, and dancing Shivani figures, often incorporating Hawaiian natural elements such as sea turtles and tropical landscapes. This fusion of Asian spiritual iconography with Hawaiian imagery reflects her unique position as a practitioner of an ancient Asian art form rooted in Pacific Island life.
Stone's current artistic mission is to preserve the Buddha woodblock tradition, a once-thriving discipline within mokuhanga that she sees as at risk of being lost. She has exhibited at the International Mokuhanga Conference juried exhibitions in Nara (2021) and Echizen (2024), and teaches mokuhanga workshops alongside Morinoue through the Honolulu Printmakers organization. She sells her prints through her Etsy shop, FaithStoneArt.
Key Facts
- Nationality
- 🇺🇸United States
- Movement
- Contemporary Mokuhanga
- Works Indexed
- 2
Frequently Asked Questions
Faith Stone is a Hawaii-based mokuhanga printmaker whose work preserves and revitalizes the tradition of Buddhist woodblock printing within the contemporary mokuhanga movement. Based in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii, she creates American Buddhist Art through the traditional Japanese method of hand-carved and hand-printed woodblock prints.
Faith Stone's work was shaped by the Contemporary Mokuhanga tradition in Japanese woodblock printmaking. Contemporary Mokuhanga: Contemporary mokuhanga (literally "wood-block print") encompasses artists working from approximately 1970 to the present who continue or reinvent traditional Japanese woodblock printing techniques.
Faith Stone is a contemporary printmaker working in the mokuhanga (Japanese woodblock) tradition. Their work contributes to the living tradition of Japanese woodblock printing. Prices for contemporary mokuhanga prints range from $100 for smaller works to $1,500 for major compositions. Most prints sell in the $180–$600 range. The global mokuhanga community has been growing, with increasing exhibition opportunities and collector interest. Contemporary mokuhanga represents an affordable entry point for collectors.
