"Year of the Goat"

4" x 4" linoleum cut stamp, printing with black oil-based ink on Stonehenge paper and hand-colored with watercolors.

Lo! the baby opens its mouth
Even when 'tis shown a flower. 

-Kubota Seifu-Jo

I made this stamp for a friend who is having a baby soon! The family of this child possess a great love for the natural world, appreciation for artistic expression, and identify profoundly with certain totems. Coming up with a suitable image was daunting at first as it seemed like such a tall order. But then this simple image of a stalwart goat guarding an egg - a symbol of both fragility and fertility - came to mind. A winter rowan tree expands behind the goat to honor the new child's mother. Green grass and the rising sun signal that winter will soon give way to spring and a new generation.

"Tree No. 26" by Andrea Starkey

Image posted with the permission of the artist. More of Andrea Starkey's work can be found at her website, blog, and Etsy store. Also check out my post from a year about reflecting on Starkey's Tree No. 15. 

Due to the diagonal at which the tree's trunk is positioned, and the way its figure is cropped at branch's edges, I cannot help but go back and forth seeing this as both a figure and a landscape. 

I see this trunk as a road. A main road, leading into a teeming society. But maybe, instead, it is the rising body of a giant. The gnarled branches zigzag this way and that to allow residents of this commune access to all their preferred nooks and crannies. A tree, like a city or giant, can grow, can thrive, can deteriorate, and die. From a distance we can't see the mother bird who grieves for her fallen chick. Looking up from the base of the tree, we are lost in golden foliage and crooked paths of shadows that read like the most beautiful calligraphy. 

After I stared at this image for a while, I started singing some of the lyrics from the song "Henrietta's Hair" by Justin Roberts. It can be found on an album marketed to children, but whenever I hear these words song, I end up caught in a state of deeper contemplation about where I fit in this ridiculous world, my responsibilities to and expectations from others. Here are the excerpts that came to mind: 

It's enter if you dare into Henrietta's hair. It's tattered and it's torn, into this life we're born. And there's room enough to share in Henrietta's Hair. Whatever else on earth could it be there for? 

It's started to get a little crowded up there in Henrietta's hair. Several of the residents wanted more than their fair share. So this mosquito in a nest said, "I hate to be a pest, but let's not forget to write our moms lots of letters, and that we are merely guests." 

Henrietta said, "Come one, come all. It doesn't matter if you're short or tall, or skinny or slimy, or just stuck out on the road. Doesn't matter who you know or what you do, everybody has the right to be tangled up in blue, in this heavenly and horrific hairdo. Just don't forget to take off your shoes. 

"Tree No. 15" (version II) by Andrea Starkey

Image posted with the permission of the artist. More of Andrea Starkey's work can be found at her website, blog, and Etsy store.

The icicles make the trees seem to hang their heads and drip, a gesture as sorrowful as a weeping willow. But really there is not a drop of movement, nor a whisper of sound. The sky is so terribly still and gray. Time itself seems to have stopped, and we have been given a long moment to reflect on the sound of silence, the extremes of black and white, and the mystery of the number zero.

Each icicle has its own unique contours, unique as a snowflake. They stand together in lines like disheveled soldiers. White and weather-worn, like bleached bones. Skulls without eye sockets.

Cold as the frozen over river that ceases to flow. Cold as a tomb in January. Cold as the top of the tallest mountain. Should we weep over this cold? Or instead use it as an excuse to close in tight with each other for warmth? Loyal 'til the end and beyond.