My puzzle piece for "100 Acts of Kindness" Monumental Collaborative Woodcut

I finished carving and proofing my piece of the puzzle in 100 Acts of Kindness, a monumental collaborative woodcut organized by Maria Arango-Diener. 

When I participated in Maria's last monumental collaboration the Peace Puzzle, I drew and carved a picture of a peaceful routine from my personal life - reading to my daughters. It was a personal little slice from my life. Click here to see that print. 

This time I went in a completely different direction. At first I contemplated make an image to represent some kindness I'd either shown others or that others have shown me, but nothing jumped out as particularly satisfying.

I've also been doing mostly text-based art for the SUBMIT project, and began to consider how I might do something text-based. This led me to considering the verbal exchange people engage in after an act of kindness has been committed. Typically the person on the receiving end says "Thank you." So that phrase was a possibility. By itself it seemed  too blasé. 

What is more interesting to me is how people respond to a "Thank you." This is often a point of mild contention. Sometimes people feel uncomfortable about being thanked, particularly if they feel it wasn't a big deal and they don't want the receiver of kindness to feel indebted to them. Other times people very much want to be recognized for their efforts with a thank you. There's also contention over the most common phrase in English offered in response to gratitude, which is "You're welcome." In Why Don't We Say 'Your Welcome' Anymore, Caroline Bologna says, "Over the years, American etiquette experts, baby boomers and writers have lamented the apparent decline in the use of the phrase “you’re welcome” in everyday conversation." This rang true to me since I've heard one of my friends who is a retired librarian in her 90's complain about how people now say "No problem" instead of "You're welcome." To my friend, the sentiment reduces the weight of the act of kindness, and therefore also negates the gratitude expressed by the recipient. But in her article, Bologna notes that for many younger people the phrase "You're welcome" has come to be associated with bragging or sarcasm, and that alternatives such as "No problem" are a solution to that linguistic shift. Indeed, the idea of making a print that featured simply the phrase "You're Welcome!" outside of any context did make the sentiment seem comical and insincere to me. 

After considering all the alternatives to "You're Welcome", I landed on "Happy To Help!" It struck me as sounding sincere, acknowledging the weight of the kindness or "help", while also noting one of the most important aspects of genuine kindness, which is that being kind, while involving effort and maybe sacrifice, can also bring us joy. And the best way to encourage kindness from everyone is to celebrate the joyful aspects of being kind. 

Collabortive Dino Linos: Sunset Return

Linocut over watercolor (unique print) 

11.5" x 9" on 140 lb. watercolor paper 

This is the last of four collaborative dinosaur linocuts I've made with my daughters. The first three were posted here, here, and here. As with the third, this print is based on a drawing by my 4-year-old daughter Bebe. 

Clouds roll in, the moon sits high, and the air has begun to cool. Darkness is coming. 

Collaborative Dino Linos: A Perilous Valley

Linocut over watercolor (unique print) 

11.5" x 9" on 140 lb. watercolor paper 

This is the third collaborative dinosaur print I've made with my daughters. The first were posted here and here. They were both based on drawings by my older daughter. This print is based on a drawing by my younger, 4-year-old daughter Bebe. 

I walk, but unsteady, continuing to move forward, though the rising wall and turbulent atmosphere does not bode well for my future. 

Collaborative Dino Linos: Ailing

Linocut over watercolor (unique print) 

11.5" x 9" on 140 lb. watercolor paper 

This is the second collaborative dinosaur prints I've made with my daughters. The first was posted here. This print was based on a drawing by Lysi, my 7-year-old. 

The colors are pretty and playful, but everything here  makes us sick. 

Collaborative Dino Linos: Hitting the Wall

Linocut over watercolor (unique print) 

11.5" x 9" on 140 lb. watercolor paper

This is another collaboration with my 7 year old daughter. (The first can be seen here.) I've resumed work on the Nautilus and the Ammonite project and I decided I need some children's drawings of dinosaurs in the background of one of the double-page spreads. However, I'm also using the blocks to make some one-off finished works in their own right such as this. This is also building on what I started with these screen prints made last year.

For this piece I instructed Lysi to draw a T-Rex from a specific reference, and then I turned her drawing into a linocut. I did a watercolor painted background before printing. I'm working on a few of these, and with each I'm trying to not have strong expectations about the final product and frequently pause and with each decision carefully respond to what has already happened. In this case the drawing of the dinosaur struck me as rather emaciated, which drove me to give him a grey, flat, and empty environment and to leave the carved marks in front of his face that suggest he's walking into a wall, in the sense of being hungry and out of options.

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!