"Yellow Children"

5 layer reduction using 2 different blocks

4" x 4"(image) 5" x 5" (paper)

Oil-based inks on Kozo paper

Edition of 4

Available for sale here.

A girl with many hearts, her face

The color of sunshine,

Ducklings, and daisies

Smiles for the camera, while

Her baby brother,

Equally yellow, strains

To peek into the frame.

(His heart hovers over his head.

He'll soon catch up to it.)

They are up front, in your face

Ready for action, yet

Gazing further on.

They are both here and

Somewhere else (somewhere new?)

And their presence here is

So bright and yellow, as if to say

Clear the intersection,

It's time to slooow dooown.

"Dinosaur and Embryo" by Arthur Hughes

Image reposted with the permission of the artist. More about Arthur Hughes and his work can be viewed at his website here. Specifically, the rest of his bone studies done from the Museum of Natural History in 1967 can be viewed here.

While the overall shapes convince my rational brain of vertebrae and an embryo, certain characteristics in this print defy that interpretation and cause my imagination to run wild. The lines in the bones seems just a bit too wiggly. The embryo almost seems to have a mohawk of hair. And what does the black circle represent? The more I look, the more I see a leafless tree that bends down beneath a black sun under the weight of some horse-like beastie. Maybe the beastie is a dragon whose wings have been clipped. Perhaps he, the tree, and sun are facing demise. Ah, I've come full circle, back to death. But don't we always ultimately end up there?

Gustave Baumann (Still Life of Toys)

In addition to award-winning color woodcuts, Gustave Baumann made toys. Specifically, hand-carved marionettes. Marionettes have a sort of haunting quality. Quite often they fall into the uncanny valley, especially when their stiff, naturalistically-represented bodies start to move around. And so looking at this image I find myself wondering if Baumann had an interest in where childlike fantasy and nightmares intersect. I stare at it, and my brain tells me that these are toys. A large, black wooden duck over a nest of smaller, yellow ducks. A sheep made of looped yarn. A stuffed monkey propped up at a toy piano. This is some sort of child's room or toy store. It should feel whimsical and cheery, right? But my gut says, no. Like a frozen-faced marionette tip toeing across a tiny stage, that creepy monkey is lifting his hands to play whatever maniacal music might come out of that dwarfed instrument. The beady black-eyed skull-faced sheep appears like some sort of bad joke, its loops and braids suggesting (through their color and texture) bones, and yet also suggesting (with their flopping) bonelessness. And of course the star of the scene, a colossal raven gaping over a mess of ducklings who move uncertainly in a slithering puddle of rope. And yet, as much as my imagination turns a still life of toys into a bad acid trip, I am captivated. I am drawn to this image and its creatures ever more for their monster-like qualities. There is some gritty reality there, some dramatization of dark, natural truth. The monsters of our imagination do not come from nowhere. They are what has come of shadows in our monkey brain. Shadows that know where we come from and what we really are.

"Rolling Tabby"

Four color reduction

11" x 16"(image) 12.5" x 18.5" (paper)

Oil-based inks on Kozo paper

Edition of 4 plus one AP in a slightly different color scheme

Print for sale online here.

Sasquatch is my most beautiful cat, but no one would ever know because he always hides when they enter my home. He's the most beautiful because of his stripes of all thicknesses and lengths, similar to woodgrain. As if they were living beings in their own right, Sasquatch's stripes stretch and retract, flex and loosen as he runs away. It is hard to say what color his coat is. Salt and Pepper? Silver and black with hints of caramel? The darkest parts glisten in the light. The thick fur on his tummy (rarely seen) is certainly lighter, tan perhaps, because the purest white is reserved only for his chin and feet. I cannot coax Sasquatch out from under the bed to show him off to guests, but at least I can carve his likeness out of wood. I can print his ghost-like image on fine, handmade paper, and I can even have him posed rolling on his back shyly exposing his soft underbelly.

"Astral Bouquet" by Joshua Norton

Image posted with the permission of the artist. More of Joshua Norton's work can be viewed and purchased here.

Black orb hurled across

Unfathomable distance.

Blue flowers bubble up

Toward flecks of light, encircling

A peach pit of a star.

Blue roses (real ones, not dyed or

Genetic modifications.)

Why this unnatural desire,

Fantastic hope of receiving an

Astral bouquet?

I've traveled the galaxy

In search of something impossible.

I've suffered loss of bone density,

Risked exposure to cosmic rays and

Never seeing my mother's face again

All in service of this most romantic quest.

I've ripped this Dragon's Eye

Out of its otherworldly soil

For you.

"The Fuju River on the Tokaido" by Shotei Hokuju

I love Hokuju's work primarily because of the bright, clean use of color and simplified geometry of his landscapes. This scene almost appears like a toy model. The hills jut up from the ground like a Rubik's snake toy in contrast to Mount Fuju, which is flat and white, like a paper cut out. Puffy, cartoonish clouds arise from the blue on the horizon, creating a cheery backdrop. All this brings me to see the tiny figures as plastic figurines, an impression that is only reinforced by the disproportionate largeness of many of the trees. The swift-flowing river gives the image some movement; I imagine the boatmen fighting the movement as they struggle to simply cross the river rather than get caught in its tide. Just as the overall image strikes me as toy-like, the lord and his entourage seem puny when set within such a whimsical and overwhelming landscape. With so many of the Edo period Japanese printmakers I find a subtle reverence for nature and its power over mankind, but only with Hokuju's prints do I come to this interpretation in such a happy manner.

"Night Runner"

Night Runner

4 layer reduction using 6 colors

5.5" x 7"(image) 7.5" x 11.5" (paper)

Oil-based inks on Rives BFK

Edition of 4

Can be purchased on Etsy here.

This is a study of a horse I created for a friend. It is the second study where I bring out the grain over the whole block (using a wire brush), and I think I'll do more. The composition of the grain in this block successfully suggests a rolling landscape and windy sky, both of which emphasize swift movement of the horse. Some of the light blue areas and dark brown shadows on the horse's body cause it to slip into the background, resulting in a ghostly appearance. I imagine myself standing in a sparse landscape at night, lit only by the moon and its reflection on thinning, swirling clouds. A cool wind chills the bare skin on my arms, raising goosebumps. Suddenly there is movement in my peripheral vision, and I glance to see the horse gallop by. Its hooves make no sound against the grassy ground. I turn my gaze to the place from where the horse emerged, a dark forest perhaps, then return for a doubletake to make sure, but the horse is already gone, leaving me to wonder if my mind is playing tricks.