"Flying Phantom"

Image is 8" x 10", paper is 11" x 14"

Woodcut (reduction)

Oil-based inks on Masa paper

Edition of 4 (there is also an addition of 4 on Kozo paper)

This isn't like most of my other work; there are areas where part of the imagery starts to fade because the background and foreground colors are so similar (the bottom of the white wings and the butterflies at the bottom of the image.) Also, the two main foreground characters are integrated into the background by the highlights which read more like cutouts. For these reasons the picture also has a more psychedelic feel to it. I imagine putting my fingers through the holes in the butterfly and baby; peering into those holes to find, perhaps, a parallel universe that is similar to but not quite reality.

Nothing in the image is substantial. Everything is fading in and out like the Cheshire Cat from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. It's all in the lighting, like when a black cat slips into the shadows and disappears. Sometimes the sun is so bright in my eyes that everything starts to fade into a blurry mess of yellow and white.

All the imagery here appears especially flat, like paper dolls but thinner. More like tissue paper dolls. So easy to crumple up and toss away.

Lighter than air. Floating up like a helium balloon but slower and softer. Soon out of reach. Eventually out of sight, forever.