Marc Keane is well-known to readers for his remarkable books on Japanese Gardens, and during his lunchtime talk for WiK last autumn he revealed that he was working on three new writing projects. One of them has now come to fruition, The Name of the Willow. Like Rebecca Otowa, whose artistic talents were evident in her self-published 100 Items in my Japanese Home, Marc has chosen to showcase his work in a personally designed publication, done with meticulous attention to the materials used (see below). The result of the labour of love is a work of art beyond the restrictions traditional publishers.

Marc writes: “I am very pleased to announce the publication of a new, illustrated book called The Name of the Willow, a philosophical folk tale which suggests that by changing the way we name things, we can change the way we see the world.  

Starting with a single willow tree growing on a riverbank, we come to discover all the things that shape the tree into what it actually is and, in doing so, we find that the willow is not a single, separate thing, but a confluence of streams, an aggregate of interactions. And, its true name includes all of the many things that make it what it is.

The journey to make this book has been a year-and-a-half long project working through all the illustrations as well as writing and laying out the book. It was printed in Kyoto and hand-bound by Kyoto artisans with a sewn spine in the traditional watoji method. The paper used in the book, Panshion 303 by Molza, is a special blend developed for contemporary printing presses that was created to evoke the soft, fibrous quality of Japanese mitsumata paper. The printing was done on Fujifilm’s high-end digital Jet Press 750s, using their proprietary Vividia water-based pigment inks.

The original illustrations were done on Kōchi mashi, Japanese linen paper, using pastels, inks, and graphite powder. Each sheet was first dyed with various inks before the drawing was started. The deep black was made using a custom-ground graphite powder. The distinctive green mimics the color used in Japanese nihonga paintings known as “ryoku shō“, which is made from finely-ground malachite.

Separate English and Japanese editions of the book are being sold directly from my studio.

“The Name of the Willow” (English edition)  —  PURCHASE HERE

“Yanagi no Na” (Japanese edition)  —  PURCHASE HERE

The story is based on an essay of the same name that appeared in my recent collection, Of Arcs and Circles, published by Stone Bridge Press.