Poems and Woodblock Prints Workshop
THIS IS A TICKETED ADD-ON WORKSHOP: $20
MTC 215 • 2nd Floor • 2:00 PM
Purchase your ticketed workshops here.
Poems and Prints: Waka Poetry and Mokuhanga Woodblock Print Workshop
This workshop introduces the basics of Japanese poetry (waka) and woodblock printing (mokuhanga).
Each participant will print their own woodblock image and compose a poem inspired by it. In Japan, words and images have never been far apart. Waka, the thirty-one-syllable form that has carried expressions of love, longing, and seasonal wonder for over a millennium, was rarely just text: poems were brushed onto paintings, inscribed on fans, and woven into the very images they responded to. This workshop invites you into that tradition by pairing waka composition with mokuhanga, the art of Japanese woodblock printing perfected in the Edo period (1603–1868), whose water-based pigments and hand-rubbing technique give prints their distinctive luminous color. Participants will choose from a range of pre-carved designs – traditional Japanese motifs as well as contemporary imagery – and print their own by hand. Waka has always begun with an image that stirs a feeling, and your print becomes that starting point: whatever thoughts and emotions surface in the making, you’ll give them form in thirty-one syllables of your own. No experience with poetry, printmaking, or Japanese is needed.
Supplies are provided. This workshop is best suited for ages 16 and older.
ABOUT THE WORKSHOP LEADERS:
Originally from California, M. Willie Garcia is a printmaker who currently resides and works in Kansas City, MO, and Lawrence, KS. They earned their B.F.A. in Printmaking from the Kansas City Art Institute, followed by an M.F.A. from the University of Kansas. Garcia’s artwork has garnered regional acclaim, with notable exhibitions including their participation in “Queer Abstraction” group exhibition at the Nerman Contemporary Museum of Art, the “Star Children” exhibition at the Bradbury Art Museum, and a featured at the Des Moines Arts Center as part of the “Immersive” exhibition. Was the 2024/2025 Grant Wood Fellow at the University of Iowa.
Linda Galvane is an Assistant Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Kansas. She holds a Ph.D. in Japanese Literature from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Osaka University. She also practices mokuhanga, Japanese woodblock printmaking, often in dialogue with literary works, and explores connections among Japan, the Soviet Union, and Latvia within transnational Japanese studies.