For this week's Scenes of the City we hung out with local gyotaku artist and free diver Trevor Goodrich.
What's gyotaku? The term comes from two Japanese words, Gyo meaning "fish" and Taku which means "rubbing," and refers to the way Japanese fisherman used to record their prize fish in the mid 1800s.
First dried and prepared to make sure none of the ink gets into the meat of the fish, the catch is then covered in Sumi caligraphy ink, and rice paper is slowly placed over it to create the print. Sounds pretty simple, but's there's many small details that go into making the perfect print.
But before you can start a print, you have to get yourself a fish – and not just any fish will do. We headed up to the waters around Fort Bragg and after a day of free diving with spear guns, and plently of other specialized gear, the crew came back with huge abalone and blue rockfish
Enjoy the photos and please share any diving or gyotaku stories you may have in the comments section.
