Some History

My turn has come to look through the family photos. It's been fun reliving some old times and since some of the pics are (distantly) art-related, I thought I'd post some here over the next few weeks. This photo was taken from the porch at my godfather's place in Rockport, Massachusetts. We stayed there off and on when I was a kid, sleeping on the floor in the tiny apartment. You can see the iconic Motif #1 in the background. The building we stayed in is still there; you can see it in the photo (on the right ((not the far right)), with the outside stairs) that I took last year when Steve and I went to Rockport for Paul Goodnow's opening at the Rockport Art Association. Motif #1 is still there, too, sort of. The original was destroyed in a storm years back; the town then built a replica. It's way too straight, of course. Maybe it will gain some charm over time. Speaking of charm, that serious-looking kid in the last photo is me, in my "arty" skirt, standing on the porch with the sun in my eyes. I was eight. The lady is my mom and the kid is my baby brother Billy.

More Snow

Since it's snowing here in New Hampshire, I thought it would be a good time to post "Snowscape" (4.75" x 8.25", oil-based inks on Japanese Mulberry paper), a woodcut I did for a print exchange. The theme was typography. I had a giant wooden dollar-sign block that I got at a letterpress fair last summer (see the previous steam roller printing post) and used that as a jumping-off place for a design. I wanted to use the block just as an abstract design element, with no reference to money, the economy, etc. It looks quite plain, but I used 3 Shina plywood blocks, plus the $, and five colors to make the print. There's a version of it hanging in the "Prints of the Year" show at the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord NH until April 2, 2010.

Another View

This is the same woodcut, printed with the same ink, as the previous post, but done on thin Chine colle paper, then glued to heavier Rives BFK. It looked to me as if Steve was paddling into the sunset. I like trying out different ways of using a block, which is partly why most of my editions are "open." 

Cecilia

Here's my latest woodcut, "Cecilia, Lily of Heaven." It was created for an exchange with the theme of "Canterbury Tales." I picked the second nun's tale, in which an angel gives a crown of lilies to Cecilia and a crown of roses to her mate, Valerian. Cecilia dies a horrible, bloody death in the end, but I decided to go for the less gory part of the story. Tori, my 14-year-old granddaughter, posed for me, wearing a crown I made using fake lilies. Instead of clearing away all the background, I left much of the wood in the area of the hair so that it would print as hairy texture. The image is 8" x 6", printed with oil-based inks on Rives lightweight paper. This version of Rives is easier to print on by hand (which is what I'm doing until I get the press) than the BFK version. 

Zucchini

Back to printmaking- Here's a woodcut done for a food alphabet exchange: it's 6" x 8", water-based inks on Rives lightweight paper. For the background, I transferred my drawing onto an uncut block, then applied plain water to the areas I wanted lighter. I rolled it with light green ink, then added a bit of yellow ink to the flower. After printing about 30 of the background, I printed the "key block" in dark green on top. I tried to make it not-too-obvious, so that you'd have to look an extra second to see the little zucchini. This was a fun exchange!