"Pigling Bland and Pig Wig" Take 2

 

"Pigling Bland and Pig Wig" 
12" x 12" 
2 block linocut and woodcut 

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.