Early on in the year I did a B&W, 4.5 x 5, covid inspired print titled ‘Passing Storm’. As we know the ‘storm’ has been what the weather folks would call a ‘very slow moving disturbance.’
When effective vaccines were announced I did a more hopeful, 5.5 x 8 print I’ve titled ‘2012, the view from here.’
Hopefully a bright, cheerful addition will be warranted very soon :- )
I love the incredible solids that engraving allows and I have a ‘thing’ about prints showing falling objects. With this print I indulged myself on both accounts. I named it ‘Night Fall.’
This was a print of a somewhat abstract painting I did of a storm that was moving in. A bit of random rolling out of ink in the background for a slight ‘organic’ feel.
One hundred years ago one of Guelph’s better known sons, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a soldier, physician and poet wrote ‘In Flanders Fields.
As part of exhibitions marking the occasion the Guelph Museum is hosting a juried exhibition of related artworks. My print ‘The Survivors’ was one of the artworks chosen.
To me the war conjures up visions of more than poppies and crosses. I envision the other casualties of war, of the long lines of refugees and of wounded soldiers returning to their homes. I see the shells of buildings and a landscape badly scarred.
My print was for those people who, having survived, were now ready to move forward towards a sparse landscape but one with a promise of better things to come.
The poem reads as follows:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields. .
Here’s a great show to catch if you’re in the Guelph/Wellington area. It features juried art from all disciplines in a great old building, The Wellington County Museum between Elora and Fergus.
My print ‘Shape ll’ was accepted. It’s part of an ongoing fascination with creating a tension between static and falling objects. 17 ” 22″, printed in 4 colours on Stonehenge.
One of a number of ‘falling’ shapes that I’ve engraved. This image on this one is 15×22, printed in three colours on Stonehenge paper.
TWELVE, an exhibition of engravings produced over the past year.
The show opens Saturday, March 2nd from 2:00 until 4:00.
The start of a new series of prints, ‘The Oregon Chronicles’. It’s about creating something new from the decay of something old.
The depth is lost somewhat in the conversion from print to screen, from 15″x22″ to screen size, but hopefully you’ll get the concept.
As it happens, I have better luck sitting beside rivers drawing than sitting beside rivers fishing. I always end up with a drawing. The evening I drew this was incredibly quiet but for the sound of large hungry fish jumping out of, and splashing back into, the river. Alas, alack, I had no fishing pole, only a sketch pad.
This is a monoprint, not really a print; more like painting with a printing press.
‘The Walls we build’ was an observation; it seemed so clear when I saw it in someone else. After it was all done I started to realize that that my walls were just as high but, apparently, harder to see from this side.
clive lewis, printmaker 