The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

American/Japanese prints on display together

“Safety in Numbers” by Al Lochtefeld

ENLARGE PHOTO

“Cloud” by Shinnosuke Konsaka

ENLARGE PHOTO

McGinn: What this city needs is a wrestling commissioner
2/3/12
Gospel music, punk making news locally
2/3/12
Your chance to see St. Valentine’s massacre guns
1/27/12
Clark County teen on album with Hank Jr.
1/27/12
McGinn: Does Bigfoot live here or is he just passing through?
1/25/12
> More headlines

By Andrew McGinn, Staff Writer Updated 8:37 PM Thursday, March 11, 2010

SPRINGFIELD — Now, this is the right way to treat a pen pal in Japan — and vice versa.

No requests for Hello Kitty stickers or that rice candy with the wrapper you can eat, and no questions from them about why we feel the need to re-edit “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” and how many hours we go to school each day, 15 or 22.

No, this is the way to do it — with an exchange of art.

For six years, the Dayton Printmakers Cooperative, with 14 members from across the area, has been exchanging prints with a similar group in Kyoto, Japan.

Working this time around with the theme “Home/House,” the 50 latest prints — plus 30 from previous years — will go on display this weekend at the Springfield Museum of Art.

“The Dayton coop is a group that’s very worthy of a museum show,” said Charlotte Gordon, museum curator. “I don’t know of any other group in the Miami Valley that’s had an ongoing international exchange in any medium. That’s certainly worthy of attention.”

With the artists each making two prints, from etchings and woodcuts to lithographs, the same show also will open this month in Kyoto. (One print of each work also will be available for sale.)

“I thought I’d be able to tell the American and Japanese prints from the images,” Gordon said, “but I really can’t. The whole imagery has merged. It’s a reflection of the true globalization that’s taken place.”

No doubt.

Who needs a Japanese pen pal for Hello Kitty stickers when you can get some at Walmart?

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.