Monday, May 2, 2011

Woodcuts

It's been a pretty busy week, so I haven't really had the chance to finish anything new. Here are some older woodcuts that had gotten lost in the shuffle.



"Claw"
Yes my friends, you are observant, I do indeed have a slight obsession with lobsters. But really, what else is as biologically fascinating, physically beautiful and tragically romantic as the life of a bottom dwelling crustacean with a complexly pointless ocular system?



"Night Terrors"

This is a reduction woodcut I did based on a night terror I had as a child. Night terrors are like if a group of bored nightmares drank a six pack of Red bull and then had a party in a semiconscious somnambulist tweenager's head. They are fairly common among young children, (I think it has something to do with brain development at that age).

One night when I was about 7 I sleep walked into the dining room. I was consciously aware of where I was but still trapped in a mental sleep state, unable to really control myself. There I saw a giant dinosaur that somehow fit under the dining room table while still looming over me. I knew this wasn't right on many levels, but I could see it right before my eyes. This breach of normality and physics was an incredibly unnerving thing to experience. It was like I was stuck in between the dimensions of reality and insanity and didn't know how to get back or if I ever would.

I know the image is kind of cute, and so it should be because looking back on it the whole idea is kind of funny, or at the very least zany. For anyone who likes it and wants to hang it in their kid's room, don't let the story turn you off. My nephew has one in his room and as far as I know he isn't haunted by giant night terror driven dinosaurs that implacably fit into physically impossible domestic scenes.

Besides, I thought the few fans I have might enjoy hearing the story behind the art, which is to me sometimes better than the actual art and usually twice as hard to come by.

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