"Colette"

 

"Colette" Woodcut Gamblin ink on white Stonehenge 8" x 12" (block), 10" x 15" (paper) This is yet another print of a friend's dog. In this case a miniature poodle. I got a little obsessed with competing patterns in this one. The metal dog sculpture in the foreground is easier to see and has more personality than the living dog sitting on the chair. Even though I made this for a friend, I think how I feel about life right now seeped into how I put this image together. Chaos and competing interests reign supreme.

"Submission Fee No. 51"

"Submission Fee No. 51"  
4.5" x 4.5"
Linocut
Edition of 5
Pay what you want by Dec. 8

This print is part of a time-based conceptual art project. Read more about it here.

INFO PARTICULAR FOR THIS PRINT:

Institution: Northville Art House
Opportunity: juried show “Black & White”
Venue Location: Northville, MI 

Eligibility: 2D and 3D work, made in the last 3 years, by artists over 18 years of age
Potential Benefits for Artists: Cash prizes
Fee: $35 for nonmembers, $25 for members, up to 3 works
Deadline: Dec. 8 

Proof of "Fireflies"

Linocut
8" x 8" (image)
Oil-based ink on Subi paper

Last year I made a couple 1" x 1" stamps to print in a circular pattern such as this (view those attempts here and here), but they weren't really going anywhere, so I moved on.

Last week I heard about a call for entries into a show at the University City Arts League where I teach. The exhibit is called "Waiting in Hades" and is open to all ages. The only requirement is that the works of art emit or reflect light. The lights will be turned out in the gallery for the opening on February 8 from 6-8pm.

This opportunity sounded like great fun, especially since my two daughters can enter their own pieces in along with mine. My eldest has created a Sharpie drawing on glow-in-the-dark coated paper. My youngest is creating a ceramic candle holder. I mulled the idea over in my head for a while since there was initially a flood of ideas, but as I'm mainly a printmaker, I decided to make a paper lantern with relief printing. It is going to be a small, square, box lantern, and this is a proof of the print I made for it. I like it quite a bit. I'll post more images when the piece is finished and after the exhibition opening.

"Two By Two"

9" x 12"
Caligo safe wash relief ink on Kozo paper
Edition of 30

I made this print for the Baren Forum for Woodblock Printmaking Exchange #78. I had taken some photos of my Australian Shepherd and Chiweenie dogs hanging out in the hallways and was having trouble deciding which photo to use as a reference for a woodcut. The technique challenge for this exchange was "multipanel", which I took as an opportunity to integrate both photos into a single print.

Two Linocuts by Alfie

For the last two days of my 2D Mixed Media after school class at the University City Arts League I decided to let the students pick whatever medium we'd used in class that they wanted to explore more. (It was a very small class, so I could give them a lot of freedom and individual attention.) This one 4th grader, Alfie, really loves to draw from his imagination, so he decided to do a couple more black and white linocuts. I thought these were pretty wonderful, especially for having executed in under 3 hours total.

Charles W. Hobson's Woman in a Bathtub

Never before has a bath felt so much like playing hopscotch.

"Gus" Revisited for Baren Forum Exchange #67

To start out the new year I've decided to delve into the recent past by finally doing an edition of Gus, a woodcut I created in 2012, but never went beyond proofing. I resurrected this woodcut for two reasons.

First, while setting up my new studio (I moved a month ago) I found this block and liked it much better than when I first carved it. Sometimes I feel overly disappointed in a first proof, especially if I have a specific idea in my head of how I want an image to turn out, and in this case I had. Now that original vision is far enough away that I can enjoy what actually came out of this block.
Incidentally, I also realized that the size of this block was just perfect for Baren exchange #67, which is due February 1st.

My second reason for revisiting Gus is that I'm interested in starting a series called Dogs A-Z, which would be a sequel to my Cats A-Z series. As with the cat alphabet book, this would be a collection of black and white woodcuts. I figured finally giving Gus his own edition would help get me into the headspace. Although honestly, I don't quite yet feel I'm there, and will probably have to get some other ideas out of my system first.

"Sunflower"

I made this for a print exchange: [Baren] Exchange #65. The image is 8" x 12.5" and the paper is 10" x 15". It is printed in oil-based ink on Sulphite block printing paper. I made an edition of 23 for the exchange. 

I had some wood blocks lying around that have very difficult grain to work with. The soft parts of the wood fleck out very easily, while the tough parts are extremely difficult to carve. So it's hard to get fine details. I decided to bring out the grain more and create a very busy composition with lots of varied mark-making. The subject of a flower from my garden seemed appropriate for that style. I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.

"Into the Pond" by Nancy Darrell

This is a wood engraving by Nancy Darrell, another artist I discovered in the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts gift shop in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. 

The swimmer, a solid, naked form, plunges into the deep. Her presence is a disturbance. While other creatures merely release gently floating bubbles, her bold and deliberate movements scratch through the previous calm.As she heads down into the dark, the ripples she's created will travel across the surface until they bounce against the edge of the shore from which she came.  

Indiegogo Campaign Art Card #4: Cat Chachki

2.5" x 3.5" art card
Oil-based ink on cream-colored, 90" smooth paper
Open edition

This is the fourth of 8 original woodcut art cards being created during my Indiegogo fundraising campaign. These will be thank-you gifts for all funders who contribute $20 or more. Funders will get to choose their preferred design to receive.

This was inspired by a set of nesting dolls (all painted to look like cats) my daughter received from her grandparents for Christmas one year. 

Joe Marshall's Shadow Set

Images posted with the permission of the artist. Find out more about Joe Marhsall's work at Pork Chop Press.

The artist calls these The Shadow Set. On their creation, he writes:

"All three prints are done on found wood that was very hard and had a lot of grain and figure in each block. I cut as little as possible to let the grain show through on the print. At the end I had to get a new set of tools."

I wrote a haikus for each one, using the same titles.

Hungry Shadow

This fur is wretched, but
When we can't find enough to eat
It gets cold.







Wave Shadow

The tide comes in, and
In trails of blood, tears, milk, cum, and spit
We dissolve.








Nameless Shadow 

A black cloud showers her
Bare back. She watches, but
We can't see her eyes.

"On the Beach" by Margaret Taylor Goss Burroughs

I think what I love about this print by the late, great Margaret Burroughs is that it is the complete opposite of imagery normally associated with summer excursions to the shore. It shares with the viewer another side of the beach experience. Most beach imagery features bright, clear skies and vivid pastel colors. But no sun bakes these vacationers; the sky is dark and streaked with lines suggestive of wind or rain. Often the people in beach scenes stand out from the landscape, appearing as obvious visitors, almost invading a place of natural tranquility. Here the people are embedded in the landscape. They seem almost a part of it, especially the stoic, reclining woman in the foreground.

Heaven rips across the sky. It is as if this beach is in the eye of a tornado, which stretches wider than the earth. 

There are the heavens, and here are we, sitting statuesque like an Egyptian Sphinx, bending in an effort to stand, holding on to babe or ball, reaching out. Here are we. 

Diego Jourdan Pereira's Bible Scenes

Diego Jourdan Pereira started his blog Jourdan Woodcuts: Journey Into Printmaking! in December. The artist has enjoyed an extensive career in illustration and comics, but is now attempting to more personally express himself through the medium of woodcuts.

His new blog has averaged two posts a month, and the posts are almost entirely photographs documenting both the work and his studio process.

Most of the featured works are part of a series illustrating the artist's favorite Bible scenes, particularly stories from the New Testament and centered around Jesus Christ.

Full disclosure: I don't typically read the Bible and I'm about the farthest thing from a Christian as is possible. But I found this series of images tremendously moving, and powerful in a way that transcends literal, personal belief. Images and stories connected with Christianity have dominated Western civilization for centuries, and thus, often carry profound meaning for non-Christians. In Context and Crucifixes, Morgan Meis writes about the use of Christ imagery by Jewish painter Marc Chagall: 

He saw Jesus on the Cross as a universally recognizable symbol of human suffering. Chagall hoped that Jews and non-Jews alike would be able to relate to this symbol.

The first image I've posted here is a depiction from Luke 24: 30-32, when Jesus appears to some of his disciples after his resurrection from the dead: 

When He had reclined at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed it, and breaking it, He began giving it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight. They said to one another, 'Were not our hearts burning within us while He was speaking to us on the road, while He was explaining the Scriptures to us?'

What I was immediately struck by in this image was how alien the three figures appear, while at the same time expressing complex and unmistakably human emotions. The eyes more resemble those of a chameleon. The sharp angles and geometric shapes found in the faces and hands give an almost robotic feel. And yet I can almost hear the figures in the bottom corners gasp in amazement. The face of Christ is most dynamic and even disturbing. One eye focuses on the disciples, while the other eye, cast in shadow, arches up to directly confront the viewer as he assertively presents the two halves of the bread. A row of white streaks read as teeth clenched and bared. Streaks of carved wood rise up from the table like steam, and fall from the ring in the center as if it is a rising halo. 

This is a moment of profound revelation. Moments when one person who has has endured an excruciating and deeply profound experience discovers a way to share that experience with others. I am reminded of great story tellers and a rapt audience gathered around a fire, or an inspired teacher who has brought an entire classroom of students to stunned silence. 

Most of the images of Jesus in Diego Jourdan Pereira's Bible woodcuts are of the divine Christ revealing himself to others. In fact the very first image posted in December is of the Magi presenting their gifts to the Christ child (second image in this post). This scene is probably the most recognizable as a Bible story. It has the star of Bethlehem, the three Kings donning halos, and of course a baby. 

In a shift from more conventional illustrations of this scene, we view the three Kings from just above where the baby lay (Mary's view, perhaps?) The baby's two, chubby arms rise up from the bottom of the frame, gesturing signs of perfection and benediction. The bright light emanating from the child seems to slice apart or dissolve the Kings. Instead of bugging-out eyes, their eyes are barely visible, turned down in reverence. As a mother, I cannot help but be moved to contemplate the impact a new baby has on the adults in that child's world. Indeed, adults bring gifts and fawn over the child, in awe at the sudden appearance of a whole, new person. A person who seems flawless, like a pristine canvas on which the story of their life has yet to be painted. A person who brings whole new depth and joy to those who love him. 

The third image shown here is from John 4, when Jesus speaks with a Samaritan woman at a well and convinces her that he is the Messiah. And the fourth is from Acts 9:5 when a blinding vision of Christ appears to Paul - the one who will spread the faith. These were the two I had the most difficulty with because while I find the imagery stunning and mysterious, they depict Biblical stories that are more typically an affront to my personal values of skepticism and pluralism. In both images, the figure of Christ is made to seem powerful  in his radiance, and mystifying as we cannot see his face. In the first, Christ's halo even shoots out to fix the gaze of the Samaritan woman on him. In the second, the artist incorporates the knot in the wood to give the appearance of Christ as a burning pillar with arms outstretched. In both instances is a bit terrifying, and I cannot say I am comfortable with the embodiment of so much power in the form of a man. I feel the Samaritan woman has been seduced or manipulated, and Paul has been intimidated into subservience. Surely such power and control is wielded every day in the world, for better or for worse. 

My favorite print from this series is the which depicts Luke 19: 41-44. Jesus is on his own in this image in a state of bittersweet contemplation over his fate as he nears the end of his days on earth. 

When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, 'If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation.'

Here the face of Jesus is made anonymous. A smooth, curved surface, like a mask with no features. Two small knots which resemble a pair of eyes appear in the sky facing a third, larger and more ominous black blotch of a knot. He has a vision beyond that of the mundane world and moves forward, rather steadily, though the head of his steed hangs low.

It is like a desperate longing for peace in a time of unavoidable war. Finding the courage to do the right thing, knowing one will be met with punishment, not reward. What I see in this image is both the futility and undying hope of the human condition.

"Painted Lady Butterfly"

This whole school year I'll be teaching woodcut printmaking to middle schoolers in Philadelphia through the Wagner Free Institute for Science's SNAP after school program. Specifically, the kids will be making small woodcuts of insects.

In preparation, I made this little 4x4 inch woodcut of one of the painted lady butterflies that keeps hanging out in my front yard. I picked the image, drew it on the block, carved it, and printed it in an edition of 4 all in the span of 2 hours today. I did this just to see how fast I could do it, because if I can't do it in a couple hours, the kids won't be able to do it in the total 5 hours they'll have allotted to them.

I am reminded of some wise words from a fellow teaching artist who worked with me at the Mural Arts Program. He said that if we were asking the kids to do something creative that might take us a long time, the kids would do it in 2 minutes. But that if it was something technical that took us 5 minutes it would take the kids at least a half hour. The more creative part of this that would have normally taken me a long time is the thinking through the image itself and then drawing it. So instead I just cropped a section of a photograph I took and copied it onto the block, which took about half an hour. The kids will have an hour for that part. The actual carving and printing (the technical part) took about an hour and a half, so it might be pushing it to expect the kids to be able to do that part in just 4 hours, but if I keep them focused and help the more meticulous students, I think we can pull it off.