![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitgGJFXFKNQhNJCQtcWn3FjhR8UyjQVhJ0NPgRzlsgitX1VmRjmTd2QqMReRiDbonM75kjTysbgNZWifyWGMCuqk2R7kUEbyYgJs6A8QW8km00k0rnkvsJrXNg8rP386y0noB_hianTBOjzvq20V518PklPvYPdp4FviPNGLabRIdRir-vtGYh5lDXIho/s320/Square%20Social%20Media%20Card.jpg)
Artwork on the card is a ceramic sculpture by June Terrell, just one of the talented artists featured in this show.
I love woodcuts and I make woodcuts. On this blog I write about woodcuts I love and woodcuts I make.
Artwork on the card is a ceramic sculpture by June Terrell, just one of the talented artists featured in this show.
One of my favorite things about winter is making soup. I make soup about twice a week all winter long. It's wonderful because it can be made so many different ways, and as long as a little care and consideration is put into the including and balancing of certain flavors, it turns out wonderful and comforting. The best gift I ever received from the parent of one of my students was a loaf of bread and some vegetable soup, given to me at the end of a long day. Little things matter.
This is
my 10th annual Groundhog Day card. Here are links to all the previous
cards:
Groundhog Day 2014
Groundhog Day 2015 (I skipped 2016)
Groundhog Day 2017
Groundhog Day 2018
Groundhog Day 2019
Groundhog Day 2020
Groundhog Day 2021
Groundhog Day 2022
Groundhog Day 2023
"Pickles and Bert"
Each print is 12" x 12". The color blocks were wood and the key blocks were linoleum. Each is a reference to either a children's book or memoir featuring a pig protagonist.
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"Saucy" from the book Saucy by Cynthia Kadohata |
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"Sprig" from the book Sprig the Rescue Pig by Leslie Crawford |
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"Christopher Hogwood" from the book The Good, Good Pig by Sy Montgomery |
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"Tickles and Pickles" from the book How Tickles Saved Pickles by Maddie Johnson |
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"Babe" from the book The Sheep-Pig by Dick King-Smith |
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"Esther" from the book Esther the Wonder Pig by Steve Jenkins and Derek Walter |
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"Pigling Bland and Pig Wig" from the book The Tale of Pigling Bland by Beatrix Potter |
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"Wilbur" from the book Charlotte's Web by E. B. White |
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"Ernest" from the book Welcome to the Bed and Biscuit by Joan Carris |
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"Swimming Pig" from the book Pigs of Paradise by T. R. Todd |
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"Daggie" from the book Pigs Might Fly by Dick King-Smith |
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"The Three Pigs" from the English folktale |
Here's a video on my Instagram of the show as it was installed.
"Pigling Bland and Pig Wig"
This is the first woodcut for a 2024 art calendar, which is part of the Some Pigs project, an AiRM (artist-in-residency-in-motherhood). The project also includes ceramics, an installation, and a zine, all of which will culminate in a solo exhibition at 1040 Creative in November of this year.
This particular print illustrates the final scene in Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Pigling Bland. While Potter's more famous stories of Peter Rabbit have been connected to stories of slavery and told by slaves in America, Pigling Bland's tale reads as a direct allegory for it. The title character and his brother are sent to market with papers. When they are stopped by a police officer, his brother is taken back to the farm because he misplaced those papers. After stowing away in a chicken coop, Pigling Bland is held by a farmer who has also "stolen" a little black pig named Pig Wig. The two plot their escape, and they achieve freedom by literally crossing a border. All of this is told in the most matter-of-fact tone, as if the inevitable and profound suffering of the pigs is utterly mundane. The comparisons to chattel slavery, distinctly from a perspective of the era, couldn't be clearer. It's an odd children's book. To me, a bit of a childlike illustration of what Hannah Arendt would decades later call "The banality of evil" in reference to how the Nazis carried out their genocide in the most dispassionate, bureaucratic manner.
Pigs are, to me, an undeniable symbol of vulnerability. The ones presented in this series of woodcuts are presented as farm animals or at best, pets or animals kept in rescues or shelters. Pigs were domesticated to be food. Those in captivity are destined for slaughter. What's more, references to bacon and other pork products abound. (As the parent of a child who often weeps at the sight or mention of bacon, I am all too aware of this.)
In these prints, it is important to me to present the pigs in moments of joy. Because even in captivity, even facing doom, pigs and people alike are beings that feel. We connect with our immediate environment and others and we experience living. It is in moments of joy, however brief, that we recognize the value of being alive.