words + pictures from the studio of Joan Colbert
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The Crow Show is a national exhibition produced by The Studio Door and curated by Roxana Velásquez Maruja Baldwin, Executive Director, The San Diego Museum of Art. This would be a marvelous exhibit to see in person, but, because it’s in San Diego, perusing the catalog is an enjoyable alternative. Click on the cover image for the link.
Among all of the remarkable artwork is this little print – the mistletoe crow continues to bide his time and I couldn’t be more pleased!
Tags: corvid, crow, linocut, mistletoe, printmaking, relief print, Viscum album
The circle of herbs has been cut for weeks, but there’s one slight hold-up. Actually, not one, but four, as in four corners, one per block and, realistically, it’s not been a slight hold-up either. Normally I would have an idea of the overall design of a piece before I even start carving. This time I focused on the circular portion and, for a brief time, considered stopping with the round layout. Apparently I wasn’t really committed to a parsley family mandala, hence the four blocks sat in the studio waiting. And then along came the corner crows, ready to preside over what is now officially titled Herbal Roulette!
Tags: apiaceae, as potent as a charm, crow, crows, hemlock, herbal roulette, linocut, parsley family, printmaking, umbelliferae
As Potent as a Charm also included some holiday beauties whose good will might be suspect:
Black Hellebore
Christmas Rose, Helleborus niger
[holly]
Biding Time
Mistletoe, Viscum album
a riddle
I lived my life between the worlds
Neither earth nor sky would call me child
The birds were my companions
The wind and rain my mentors
Daily I grew in power and strength
‘Til snatched out of time by the trickster
answer: mistletoe
Tags: as potent as a charm, crow, hellebore, holly, linocut, mistletoe, printmaking, raven, relief print, riddle
Oh, the holidays – even they are fraught with pretty poisons! The crow sits patiently under the mistletoe, Viscum album, in Biding Time – hoping for a kiss? Among the mistletoe lore and legend this riddle (author unknown) caught my fancy:
a riddle
I lived my life between the worlds
Neither earth nor sky would call me child
The birds were my companions
The wind and rain my mentors
Daily I grew in power and strength
‘Til snatched out of time by the trickster.
answer: mistletoe
Tags: as potent as a charm, crow, linocut, mistletoe, printmaking, raven, relief print
Three of the prints in the As Potent as a Charm exhibit will feature common landscape plants (see perilous plantings for line drawings) who keep their toxicity well hidden. The proof print above is of a Rhododendron in A Deceptive Welcome.
The block in progress shows the ubiquitous Yew, Taxus baccata, in Pleasant Valley; Oleander, Nerium oleander, guards the gate in Be Still.
Tags: as potent as a charm, crow, linocut, Nerium oleander, oleander, printmaking, raven, relief print, rhododendron, Taxus baccata, yew
The Tally Birds made an appearance in Ohio Rural Electric Power’s Country Living magazine this month, accompanying Karen Kirsch’s article, As the Crow Flies. Opening with the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher quote, “If men had wings and bore black feathers, few of them would be clever enough to be crows,” Ms. Kirsch includes Corvid folklore, history and behavior in her succinct piece about the blackbirds that make their homes in both rural and urban settings.
You can follow Karen Kirsch’s blog at My Small Country Life.
Tags: blackbirds, crow, printmaking, raven
