2017, Etching, Land

Nature & Nuture

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This print delights me. The book is a leather bound volume of Locke’s essay – “Human Understanding” published in 1857. I own that book. On top of it is a pear, grown on a neighbor’s tree and a small bird nest that fell out of one of my trees. I had never etched a bird nest and I struggled with this. Being a person with a love of science I drew it exactly as it was. I could have shaped it more dramatically and pretty but that’s how it was, rather crunched with twigs in disarray.

2017, Etching, Sea

Sedna

Sedna is an important figure in Inuit mythology and the stories and depictions of her vary from Greenland to Alaska. She is sometimes depicted as part female and part fish, but she is always recognizable as a critical part of Inuit story telling and art. The first time I heard about her I was told that she had fallen into the water from her father’s boat and when she reached up to pull herself in he had chopped off her fingers rather than let her turn the boat over. From there her fingers became the animals of the sea. When I finally had her fingers drawn the way I wanted, I couldn’t cut them off. So here you see her sinking down due to the weight of her heavy parka.