Peace Puzzle, Collaborative Woodcut (My Small Contribution)

This is my contribution to the Peace Puzzle, a monumental collaborative woodcut with 160 participating artists, conceived and lead by artist Maria Arango Diener. Here is the website/blog, and if you'd like to watch the Indiegogo informative video, click here.

I received my block for this project a while ago, and changed my mind about a dozen times on what to draw on it. The first things that came to mind were symbols of peace, but that was too obvious. Then I thought about figures from history famous for working toward peace, but that felt too specific for a big, collaborative project. Then I started thinking about images from nature, such as maybe a tortoise, elephant, or owl, that are associated with patience and wisdom. But nothing I came up with really resonated with my personally.

Finally, I realized that I'd completely over-thought the whole thing and felt stuck.So I emptied my head and asked myself when in my own life do I feel most at peace. And the answer was when I'm reading to my girls before bedtime.

Now as I was drawing and carving, I didn't exactly consider how this block will be oriented when it is put back into the larger piece. I simply came up with an image that fit the way it fit. So as you can see from the second photo of both the block and the proof, the girls will be upsidedown in the final piece. But I'm okay with that because the overall design for the big print is very fluid and it seems as if things are being gently blown all around the composition. And after all, Marc Chagall never had a problem with people's heads being upsidedown!