"California Trip" by Antonio Frasconi

Here's a composite of woodcuts by the late, great Antonio Frasconi, one of my absolutely favorite American printmakers. Few woodcut artists manage to develop a style as expressive and unique as Frasconi.

I hesitate to write about the images presented here. I feel the heart of Frasconi's work is so completely visual. With Frasconi's woodcuts, I am entralled with an image when it is in front of me, but after I am away from it for a while, I forget what it was which so enthralled me. I feel as if I must have been like a drunk person, and that the image wasn't really that captivating. Later I return to the image and am every bit as gratified as before! But how to write about that experience which is so utterly separate from words? That is partially why I've only featured Frasconi's work one other time.

Okay, so that's also a bit of a cop-out since the ruminations I pair with images on this blog are never an attempt to translate the image's meaning into words. They are simply literary responses; an exercise I employ to focus my attention on specific images which grab me, and explore my subjective response to them more intensely.

Speaking of experiences which engage the intellect and enliven the (metaphorical) soul, I dearly miss traveling. The United States is such a vast country with an overabundance of diverse and breathtaking scenery, and I have seen so little of it with my own eyes. Ah, but if I do not have the time or resources for that, at least I have art. Art, which cruises me down slithering rivers, escorts me through valleys and mountains under many-colored skies, where every sort of folk reside, and the horizon knows no bounds.

"Impatiens with Border" by Millicent Krouse

Last Saturday I finally checked out the local exhibit Artists in the Garden: PAFA at Morris Arboretum. PAFA (The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) is my alma mater, so I was familiar with a number of the artists who had works in the show. But I did not yet know Millicent Krouse, who continues to enjoy a prolific artistic career, primarily as a wood block printmaker. For readers interested in learning a wee bit more about Krouse, check out page 38 of the Woodmere Art Museum's catalogue Women and Biography, found in PDF form here.  

The blossoms are beautiful, but sink. Black leaves droop over the double-thick bottom border, almost obscuring the block-letter label. A more airy blue squiggle fills the empty space above their heads. There will be no silences during this conversation. Three, open faces lean forward, their gazes locked on an audience that so long has eagerly awaited their colorful entry into this world. We so longed for spring, but nothing worthwhile comes without a price.