"Memento Mori" (for Aubrey)

This is my latest white line woodcut. It was created in memory of my cat Aubrey, the most awesome cat in the universe, who passed at the beginning of the summer. An edition of 20 was printed for Baren Forum Exchange #74. It is hand printed with a wooden spoon with watercolors on 90 lb cold press watercolor paper.

Having slept, the cat gets up,
yawns, goes out to make love.
-Kobayashi Issa 

Bookplate for Al Gury

Oil-based black ink on 90 lb. Natural Stonehenge paper, 4" x 4", edition of 25 plus 2 artist's proofs.

Al Gury is a painter, author, and professor at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He's also a cat lover and recently commissioned this bookplate for his literary collection. It's in the style of the prints from my Cats A-Z series/book.

I enjoyed making this a lot, especially drawing the lounging cat. He looks pretty relaxed. The Cats A-Z series is printed on bright white paper, but this is printed on a more cream-colored Natural paper (Al Gury's suggestion), which I think better suits the mood of the piece.

Three Cats A-Z Prints With Trippy Colors

My cousin Gail is visiting and while coloring with our kids she created some psychedelic versions of three Cats A-Z proofs I had lying around. Thought I'd share the fun.

With Cats On Our Laps

Bug On the Ceiling 
White line woodcut (unique print)
Watercolor on Stonehenge
10" x 33" (block), 15" x 40" (paper)

This is a self portrait holding my cat Aubrey. I got the idea and began work on it after doing a little white line portrait of myself last September. I'm gearing up for my next book project, which will be all white line woodcuts.

The title, Bug On the Ceiling, is meant to be bit humorous. Certain elements of this print point toward religious imagery, specifically alluding to Mary chosen by God to mother the Christ-child. But it's not a baby she holds, it's a cat. What seems a light on the woman's head is wood grain, and all other representational imagery is plant-life, distinctly earth-bound. Finally, there's the title, letting the viewer in on the totally mundane of reasons why she's looking up.

I'm not mocking religious sentiment so much as I'm attempting to elevate the every-day.

M.C. Escher made this woodcut, Seated Man With Cat On His Lap in 1919. In it, the subject is just as centralized in the composition, but he doesn't look up; he confronts his viewers. Boy that guy can look deadly serious even with a big curled-up cat in his lap. Reminds me of Cardinal Richelieu, who used to sign death warrants while his cats sat on his lap. (Richelieu had 14 cats, including one named Ludovic the Cruel.)

I love how this man's suit and chair just sort of melt into the flatness. His head practically floats. The Prophet Mohammed is said to have once cut off a piece of his clothing rather than disturb his pet cat who was sleeping on it. Perhaps there is something transcendent about the companionship of these domesticated carnivores, who have not the loyalty of dogs, nor the nobility of horses. We initially kept them to kill vermin in our granaries. Now they occupy the most intimate of spaces in our homes, even anchoring down our very bodies.

I keep making woodcuts. Different kinds of woodcuts. I make books now so I can make a whole series of woodcuts on a theme or to tell a story. Another artist friend of mine recently said to me, "Not everything needs to be a woodcut." But almost everything kind of does need to be woodcut! Because I haven't hit a wall with that. I keep finding new avenues to explore with it. It's only the same old thing over and over again if I let it be. I must stay in this small place I currently occupy; dig deeper to find whole new layers of sediment; look longer through the keyhole to find what few others have noticed.

Lots of times I hear Peggy Lee's voice in my head, singing, Is this all there is? Yeah, this is all there is. And at least most days, it's enough.

"Cats" by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

The cat stands on the edge, neck curved up like that of a hissing snake. Milky, round eyes stare out from a diminished head. Black shadow falls across the creature's back in the shape of a wing with feathered texture across the edge. Is this cat or chimera, feline or sphinx?

A whisper of a figure in the background is muzzled by the upright companion's aggressive stance. A passive state of mind comes across with ears and eyes cast down and the hatch-marks across the head and back like so much background debris.

The house cat at rest seems a domesticated loaf, but in the right moment, under the right lighting, we see that within all tamed beasts, wild seed can still germinate.

"Companions" by Paul Kidder

Image posted with the permission of the artist. More of Paul Kidder's prints can be viewed at the Etsy store KG Crafts, where he sells his work alongside that of Katie Galbraith.

Sitting together to stay warm. You are right here - my tail encircles you, my blackness embossed by your snowy pelt - but I am distant. I am gazing in the same direction that my whiskers, paw, and tail reach. I am obsessed with something which has nothing to do with you. You, sleeping so content and oblivious to my state of mind. Yet I am strengthened by the heat of your body, calmed by the vibrations of your purr. I am not thinking of you, and yet your presence has caused me to hesitate. Despite the heat we create, I am frozen, entranced by the object of my obsession, and anchored down by intimacy.

Cats A-Z: C (Chase No Face)

I am revising some of my Cats A-Z selections. Here we have a new entry for "C."

"Chase No Face" 
Woodcut
6" x 8" (paper) 3" x 4" (image) 
Oil-based inks on white Subi paper 
Artist's Proof 
Available for purchase here. 

Chase was badly injured in an accident as a kitten. Though she is now a perfectly healthy cat living a normal life, her face is still seriously disfigured. Chase's owners maintain a blog and facebook page where they post photos and stories of Chase's daily life. She has attracted a considerable following on the Internet and has become an inspiration to many people who are also seriously disfigured. 

Cats A-Z (Cover)

"Kitty, Cat" 
6" x 8" (paper) 4" x 4" (image) 
Available for purchase here. 

For the cover of my Cats A-Z book I definitely didn't want to have a cute cat. So thinking it through for a while, I came up with this image. The model for the cat peering up from behind the table is my own pet cat Horatio (also known by his nickname "Oshie.") He is named after Hamlet's foil, because Oshie was acquired to be a friend and amusing contrast to my older cat Aubrey. Perhaps the best-known scene in the play Hamlet is when Hamlet picks up the skull of Yorick, and says to Horatio:

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hathborne me on his back a thousand times; and now, howabhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rims atit. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I knownot how oft. Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment,that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chap-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, lether paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.

Cats A-Z: Z (Zombi)

"Zombi" 
Woodcut
6" x 6.5" (paper) 3.5" x 4" (image) 
Oil-based inks on white Subi paper 
Artist's Proof 
Available for purchase here. 

Zombi 

The Zombi's wide eyes glisten and look past the inanimate occupants of the cellar. His gaze is fixed on some horrible memory. The agonized scream he let out in the still dark hours of that fateful morning has long faded to silence. And yet, that scream was like a drop that plunged into the pool of his mind, making ripples that now encircle his entire sense of being. Before the incident, he enjoyed being a black cat, slinking from one shadow to the next as he stalked pigeons and rats. Now he cowers in the dark of his underground lair, afraid of the Beast. His form has lost substance. His black cloak is a bottle of ink being poured into the sea. 

The Zombi was the name of a cat owned by the English poet Richard Southey. He named the cat after the Chief of the Palmares. Southey wrote an elaborate letter about the Zombi to Grosvenor Bedford. In that letter he describes how he took in an all-black tom cat because it had become a nuisance to its previous owner (it killed birds in the pigeon house.) Southey hoped it would solve his rat problem. One night the Zombi let out a anguished scream, but was discovered alone and unharmed. Southey wrote to Bedford asking what he thought caused the scream, and suggests the cat saw and/or had been tormented by the devil.