"Sub Rise"

 

6" x 6" (image), 9" x 9" (paper)
3 layer reduction linocut
Oil-based ink (Gamblin)
Edition of 6

This is a print made to celebrate the latest birth of a child in my extended family. This new baby boy is my cousin's second child, and so I made his print as a companion piece to "Sky Ship" - a print I made for his big brother 5 years ago. Since that print featured sea creatures (flying fish) and a boat  in the sky, I decided to do an underwater scene but with creatures moving toward the light and the surface. In the other print a figure stands at the port of a sailboat, and here a figure looks out from the window of a toy-like submarine. Both images mean to depict a brightly colored world of possibilities and longing for discovery. 

The sea! the sea! the open sea! The blue, the fresh, the ever free! Without a mark, without a bound, It runneth the earth's wide regions round! It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies; Or like a cradled creature lies. I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea! I am where I would ever be; With the blue above, and the blue below, And silence wheresoe'er I go; If a storm should come and awake the deep, What mater? I shall ride and sleep.                           From "The Sea" by Barry Cornwall

"Submarine" by Marcia Brown

Three weeks ago the accomplished illustrator Marcia Brown passed away. Brown was a master of woodcuts (among other mediums,) and won the Caldecott medal three times, including for Once A Mouse, a fable in woodcuts. Jil Casey posted several images from Once A Mouse on the blog The Art of Children's Picture Books. You can also read Marcia Brown's obituary in the New York Times.

Skimming along just above the surface, we see above and below. Spindly feelers stretch out as we pass through the shrouds of water and air. Eye wide open, always moving, we are armored by steal scales and ready for any encounter. Like a fish with wings, we are caught between worlds.