He generously hosted and taught a string of papermaking students, both foreign and Japanese. Working with Haruko until her death from cancer in 1993, and then on his own or with an assistant, Richard spent approximately 30 years at Jionji, making paper and creating art works - prints, collages, decorated papers that were at once traditionally Japanese and yet also entirely his own, artists books, handmade and hand-printed labels for local organic sake, lights, voluminous dragons, and so much more. He established Jionji Press, and went on to publish limited edition books, such as ‘The Ballad of Joe Kozo’ and ‘Philosophy of the Shirt’. Eventually, through the broadminded interpretation by the regional monk of how papermaking might be akin to zen meditation, Richard was able to add a papermaking and printmaking studio in 1988 by reassembling an old Japanese kura (storehouse) next to the temple. Ultimately, in 1976 Richard and Haruko became caretakers of Jionji (or Jionzenji).
In looking for a place to live in Ogawa, Richard learned of a local zen temple that needed a caretaker. Working with Japanese handmade paper in the process of making his prints, he became interested in papermaking, and his papermaking studies began in 1976 at the Saitama Prefectural Paper Industry Research Station in Ogawa-machi, northwest of Tokyo. With a developing interest in Japanese moku-hanga (woodblock printmaking), he applied to Japan’s best known school of art, Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku (Tokyo University of the Arts), and was accepted as a non-degree student in 1972, taking courses there for two years. Returning to Boston, he found work briefly doing graphic design and illustration, but moved back to Japan in 1970. Following the end of his service at a base in South Korea, he sojourned briefly in Japan in 1968, curious about the country and its people. Interested in art and design from a young age, Richard studied design at the Art Institute of Boston (1961-1965) before being drafted into the US Army in 1965. Richard was born in Dorchester, MA in 1943, third child of five, to Thomas and Dorothy. An exceedingly gentle and kind person, Richard had an in-the-moment fascination with life and aesthetics that was gratefully taken in by the people around him. He was particularly attentive to Japanese hand papermaking and woodcut printmaking. Like Richard himself, his work was always honest, appreciative of nature, and in awe of our place in the cosmos. Richard Flavin, with his own brand of quiet but infectious enthusiasm, was a printmaker, papermaker, letterpress printer, artist, and lover of Japan, old Japan, Japanese utilitarian antiques, and the Japanese people.
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