The Concord Museum is Alive With Birds

The Concord Museum, in collaboration with the Museum of American Bird Art at Mass Audubon, has just opened a lovely new exhibition that explores some of the life and legacy of William Brewster (1851-1919). Brewster spent more than 30 years studying natural history on his farm in Concord, was one of the earliest advocates for bird protection in America, and was the first president of Mass Audubon.

The exhibition Alive With Birds: William Brewster in Concord includes paintings, sculptures, and a linocut (mine!) from the MABA collections, as well as artifacts from the Concord Museum, Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology, and the Chesterwood Archives at Williams College. Excitingly, some of Brewster's field journals are on display, and the exhibition touchingly pairs excerpts from his observations with artwork from contemporary and historical bird artists, including John James Audubon, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Charley Harper, and Lanford Monroe. 

"Trunk Show," reduction linocut by Sherrie York, paired with 
Brewster's observations of the behavior of downy woodpeckers at his farm in Concord.

"Alive With Birds" is open now until September 2022, so if you find yourself in the Concord area this spring or summer, do stop in to take a look. The museum also has some lovely historical exhibits and artifacts... including one of the very lanterns used to signal Paul Revere to begin his famous ride! 

Linocut in Progr... Finished!

I woke up yesterday morning determined to finish this linocut, no matter what. I'd been waiting a couple of days again for ink to dry, and it was testing my patience mightily.

Thankfully a friend called on Wednesday to see if I was up for the trip to Portland for the weekly tango practica. Yes! Good to dance, and good to be away from the studio, where the temptation to rush things was high. Not so good was the return journey at 10:00pm in an unexpected snow storm, but hey... that's a different story.

ANYWAY! Despite the late night I popped awake early, got the fire going, ate some oatmeal, and...

Oh, wait. We have to back up a couple of days first.

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 13

Remember? I wanted one more run of a darkish, transparent blue-black. Which was this. I was feeling pretty good at this point, and wanted to just charge ahead and finish the birds. But with 12 other ink layers underneath, it was imperative to wait for this color pass to dry enough. Charging ahead would mean risking damage to this layer and possible adhesion problems with the next.

Which finally brings me back to yesterday. The birds which have emerged to dash through the forest are pileated woodpeckers. Their bright red crests were allegedly the inspiration for the cartoon character Woody Woodpecker, but there wasn't anything funny about printing those tiny little shapes.

I wanted the bird in the middle ground to appear... well, in the middle ground. More in shadow than the foreground bird. It was a decision which required mixing two different blobs of ink, using two ink knives, two brayers. A lot of work and mess for two tiny little bits of color.

My smallest brayer is an inch wide... too wide, really, for these shapes, so I also took the time to wipe extraneous ink from the block before printing. Now would NOT be the time to get careless.

I also cut newsprint masks to cover all but the birds before printing, as added protection against extraneous color. Apparently I didn't take a photo of the prints after the red bits were applied... but honestly, there wasn't that much to see.

Reds printed, I cleaned off the block (at least that part didn't take long) and mixed up the final blue-black transparent color for the birds. This time I do have a photo of the mask... although it's on the prints, not the block:

And finally....

All done! Slightly embiggenable with a click if you want to see more details.

Whew! That was a journey and a half. It's still lacking a title... I'm thinking about something with the word "chase" in it... Chasing Shadows? Possibly. I need to sit with the happily drying prints for a little bit yet.

So... what's next? I'm not sure. Perhaps something smaller and simpler that I can finish quickly! One more snow scene, maybe– before I stop chasing shadows and start chasing spring.

Linocut in Progress: So close, and yet.....

So far.

I really hoped to have this wrapped up before the weekend, but alas I was foiled once again by my own compulsive behavior. As you'll see....

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 11

Oh these trees and this green! Argh. I swear my next piece will have no green in it whatsoever. But before that can happen I have to wrestle this one into submission. Or perhaps it has to wrestle me. Whatever. We have to come to some sort of conclusion. The Step 11 color pass was a transparent browny-gray over the entire block. Some of the texture is starting to resolve in the foreground tree trunks, and if you click to slightly embiggen the image you might see some of the needle texture in the greens of the trees.

At this point I had to face something I had been avoiding for a couple of color passes. There were a few of the middle-ground tree trunks that were reading as too green. I had hoped that the warmer color of Step 11 would bring them into line, but it didn't quite work. So... a mask and some spot inking were my best solution.

Mask in place... Step... 11B?

Luckily, this mask was far simpler than a lot of my efforts and the areas that needed to be inked were small, so this step was relatively quick. Let's just call it 11B... okay? Sort of a half step.

11B. You probably can't see much difference, but trust me. I am happier.

And THEN I thought I was ready for the last color pass before the details of the birds. Woohoo!

Reduction linocut in progress, Step 12

Oh.
Nope.
Not quite.

It took me a couple of tries to get this color right... again it's very transparent, and it's a warmish blue-gray, if you can imagine such a thing. And it's close... oh so close... to being the last one. But I think to really push the background into... well... the background... I need just a few more darks in the foreground trees. Not so dark that they will ultimately interfere with the birds... which will be almost black... but... something.

The good news is that this means I can wholesale take out the background. The bad news is that it is darn scary to remove this much material. I mean... look:

Eeek!

That little bird's got no more cover! Totally exposed! Eek! No going back now...

Printmaking gods permitting, I'm planning to have this all wrapped up by the middle of the coming week. Keep your fingers crossed for me. I need to keep mine UNcrossed so I can get the work done.