American Virgin, John Center

Exhibition Label: "Inspired by Japan," Mar-2003, Cori Sherman Founded in 1997, BarenForum.org is an international Internet group whose purpose is to promote the art of woodblock printmaking and the free exchange of information among woodblock printmakers. In addition to its several interactive discussion forums, BarenForum.org coordinates quarterly print exchanges on behalf of members. Participation is limited to the first thirty registrants, but any member may register so long as the prints meet published criteria. There are no other restrictions or qualifications for participation. Guidelines for this portfolio were presented on the listserve for those interested to begin work by Nov. 1st, 2002, and to be finished by Feb.1st, 2003. Rather than a particular subject matter, the theme of this collection specified that each print must be executed in Japanese multi-block color woodcut techniques (mokuhanga). Further, each print would be hand-printed with a traditional rubbing pad (baren) on Japanese paper (washi) in chu-tanzaku dimensions, which is a length-wise half of the standard o-ban sheet size of about 15 x 10 inches.