Puerto Rico 2025 SGCI woodcut print palm trees ocean waves woodblock print charles spitzack wind mokuhanga shina plywood seattle art artist printmaker japanese print arts

Tropical seascape produced for the 2025 SGCI (Southern Graphics Council International) conference held in Puerto Rico. The composition combines palm trees with ocean waves and wind, subjects that link the print to the seascape and tree categories of traditional Japanese woodblock—seas treated in a manner reminiscent of Hokusai's wave studies, foliage rendered through the crisp silhouetting characteristic of mokuhanga. Cut on shina plywood and printed by baren on washi, the work uses water-based pigments that allow bokashi gradations across the ocean from deep to shallow water. As an SGCI exhibition piece, it represents Spitzack's engagement with the wider American printmaking community alongside his international mokuhanga affiliations—SGCI being a major organization of printmakers in North America. The Puerto Rican subject matter, atypical for traditional mokuhanga but consistent with the contemporary American mokuhanga movement's expansion of the medium beyond Japanese imagery, demonstrates how the technique travels with its practitioners.