"Junior" by Alexis Mackay

Image posted with the permission of the artist. More of Alexis Mackay's work can be viewed at her blog and Etsy store.

He's a bit prickly. Not quite as dangerous as a porcupine. More like a hedgehog. Prickly, but still cuddly. Cuddly, except when he looks at me like that; hunger tinged with scorn. I can practically hear his stomach rumble. He knows I didn't have anything better to do, yet here he waits in silence. And glares.

"Mother and Child" by Holiday Anderson

Image posted with the permission of the artist. View more work by Holiday Anderson at her Etsy store, Lady Holiday.

Her hands are large, and the baby is so small. Her solid arms dwarf his swaddled, egg-like body in their embrace. The floral pattern on the nursery wall is airy and passive. The blossoms float in even separation from each other. Cheery, content, parallel play. The tulips on mother's dress are another matter altogether. Their long, green stems crawl up like vines, gripping the curves of her body, while spiky blossoms eagerly reach out to connect and contain. Mother kisses the top of baby's head, and in this gesture completes a three-quarter enclosure of protective affection around her sleeping bundle. He will never be this cozy again.

"Distant Sunset, Colorful Hill" by Hiroto Uratani

There are many roads, and they all go around and around and around. We can look off into the distance, but we can never be out there. We can wonder at what might exist out there in the various shades of atmosphere, but we can never discover it. Even when we move forward, get closer, the particles disperse, the color goes transparent, and we are one again Nowhere Special. Better to take inventory of what is beneath our feet at the moment. Bend down so as to shove our hands into the ground and feel the collective movements of a million grains of sand.

"Nesting (Tengmalm Owls)"

9" x 9" (image)
Oil based inks on cream colored Stonehenge paper

Halfway through making this I felt better about it than I do now. But that seems to happen a lot. Especially doing printmaking the way I do it - in layer after layer, and so much left to chance and happy (or unhappy) accidents.

So much subtlety is drowned out by the blue that is just too much of a contrast with the browns. But without that contrast, something else would be lost, such as my favorite part which is the small bird emerging from the shadow of the hole. Argh. The finished product hardly ever feels right.

"Crow-berry" by Yumi Kawaguchi

Image posted with the permission of the artist. View more work by wildlife artist Yumi Kawaguchi at her online store Dogwood Studio Alaska.

The berries, plump and sweet, are ready for picking. We must get there before the birds steal them all away. They'll eat pretty much anything, especially as winter nears, and even despite the fact that these berries resemble their own young. The ravens look so austere, like proud parents guarding over their offspring. But no, tiny eyes and beaks mean nothing to these wise and unsentimental omnivores; the berries are food.

Thankfully it is still warm. The bright sunlight is reflected by a seat of orange foliage. Orange and black; funny how the colors of decay can be so rollicking. Particularly when set against a clear, blue sky. I feel almost as if I'm at a circus, surrounded by colorful costumes and banners and gleeful songs, where the animals solemnly endure a tortured existence for our amusement. 

"Ravens Guard the Sun Owl" by Kenojuak Ashevak

This is another stonecut by Kenojuak Ashevak. I first wrote about a print of hers four months ago. Since I've been on an owl kick, I simply had to come back to this artist, who depicted so many fantastic owls and owl-like creatures.

Wherever you stand near him, you cannot block the view; he is so much taller. And anyway, those feathers on his headdress will reach out and club anyone who gives us any trouble. The raven I see in double vision talks talks talks, but to whom? The owl stands spread. Vulnerable, as a large target. And yet it is also the position he takes when swooping down on prey. I'm not sure if he's about to embrace or disembowel. Isn't there always a little bit of both sides? Aren't our best assets our worst flaws? Don't we all have a little heaven and hell?

Chizuko Yoshida's Butterflies

There are more from this artist's series, but here are six that I thought went well together. The butterflies are just about gone, along with the summer, and so I'm feeling a bit sentimental. This always happens when I see more things dying than blooming every time I step outside. The symbolic meaning of butterflies tends to be connected to metamorphosis, but the most profound symbolism they possess for me is as a symbol of life itself, in that they are a delicate, transient, and exquisitely beautiful creature. Whenever I see one I always feel I'm not getting enough. They move to quickly to examine for very long. Of course we can photograph or kill and preserve them for study, but of course that's not the same if what one is after is an aesthetic experience with another living being.

I love looking at these prints as a set of variations on a theme. In these thick clutters of fluttering life, rarely do any individuals stand out. Even when individuals do stand out (see the larger pair in the fourth print down or the largest blue and black one in the fifth print down) they are still integrated with the rest of their community. I look at these and I feel closer to the rest of humanity. I feel both strength and anonymity found in large numbers. It is a sort of quiet loudness.









From these images I also feel the emphasis on seasonal change through the soft gradations of color and varied arrangements. The first image feels like the rosy blossoms of early spring pushing their way up as the warm heat of the sun radiates from above. The second image points me to the most grey of foggy days. In the third image I feel blown back by an explosion of life as spring finds its stride.





In the fourth image I feel the heat of summer, the sweat of lovers in bed without the benefit of air conditioning. In the fifth image I feel the butterflies themselves are fading away as autumn, that harbinger of death, strolls in. The last image below feels like a pile of debris in the cool winter, coming alive. I am reminded of the character Marjory the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock, and her endless offers of sage advice to those in a predicament: Bring me your troubles, bring me your pain, bring me your woe. Somehow butterflies ease the suffering.