Untitled

This untitled print represents another work from Pittman's mokuhanga output. The technique she employs descends directly from the Edo-period [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e) printers, refined by [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) workshops in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but it has been reworked over the past several decades by international practitioners who treat the process as a fine-art medium rather than a commercial craft. The defining technical markers — water-based [sumi](/glossary/sumi) or pigment, paste mixed into the ink for body, hand-burnishing with the [baren](/glossary/baren), dampened kozo paper — produce surface qualities that distinguish a mokuhanga impression from a Western lithograph or intaglio at close inspection. Pittman's inclusion in the IMC Americas 2024 exhibition in Echizen, the historical center of Japanese [washi](/glossary/washi) production, reflects the conference's role in connecting practitioners across Japan, North America, and Europe through juried shows, demonstrations, and paper-mill visits.