Lino + Embroidery

Angeliki with her feather stitched shirt and french knot button

Nicole with her satin stitched bow

Lino + Embroidery

Jo with her straight stitch geometry

Leila with her cross stitch shirt

Lino + Embroidery

Soo-jin with her laid stitch with couching shirt collar

Valéria with her satin stitched stripes and hair ties

Lino + Embroidery

Rosa with her french knot bar, satin stitched hair tie and fern stitched shirt

Sasha with her whipped running stitch shirt and satin stitch earrings

Lino + Embroidery

Catharine with her backstitched earring and couched lace collar

Corinne with a chain stitched coat, straight stitched scarf and back stitched head wrap

Rosa

the last of the lino ladies- Rosa

Corinne

One of my lino print Ladies. From the back, Corinne.

Nicole

One of the ladies in my lino block series. Nicole

Soo-jin/Sara

Another of the lino prints in my Ladies series. This is Soo-Jin/Sara.

Valéria

Another lino print in my Ladies series. This is Valéria.

Leila

Another lino print from my Ladies series. This is Leila.

Even as hair obscures, it enhances, and exposes.

Jo

Another lino print from my Ladies series. This is Jo.

But people can seem familiar even if unknowable. There's a certain universality to women's hair...

Catharine

One of my linoprint ladies. Catharine


And also, other people are always, to a certain extent, unknowable. Everyone is aloof even when vulnerable.

Sasha

One of my linoprint Ladies. Sasha

The thing is, though women can't see the backs of their own heads, there's still so much personality there.

Thessaloniki Port

Inspired by the city of Thessaloniki, this lino is ink-greedy but conveys one of my favorite fall views.

Angeliki

I'm working on a series of ladies carved in lino. They are inspired by women I know. This is Angeliki.

I ended up drawn to this type of subject for this series because of the combination of strength and vulnerability the back of women's heads communicate to me as well as my own femininity. As women, we're encouraged to have long hair which requires constant maintenance to remain "presentable". But it's a constant struggle to remain presentable; our hair obeys the call of gravity or its natural texture and tends to fall out of its intended form-hairs straggling free before the eventual collapse of whatever hairstyle we did that day. We're (usually) constantly adjusting-redoing our ponytails, our braids throughout the day. Added to that, we rarely get to actually see what our hairstyles look like-yeah, you can angle mirrors or crane your neck or take photos-but for the most part, we are maintaining something that we rely on our skill and practice to trust it looks "ok". There's a strength in this confidence, this ability to go about our normal day unapologetically feminine and human but inevitably a vulnerability as well. 

Hair in the Wind

a self portrait lino block

Workhorses

I've made books and not photographed them. I haven't posted on here for awhile but I was reminded the other day of a question I often got. "Can the books you make actually be used?"

So here are my two To-Do books to illustrate that Yes. YEs. YES. They can be used!

My fellow bookbinder friend lives in one place from year to year and thus spends a lot more on her materials than I do. One holiday break spent at her place, she offered me some of this vegan leather. I took her up on the offer immediately, this is buttery smooth and pricy...and very durable. I use this book about once a month and it looks more or less the way it does when I first made it. 

bound in twisted kettle and link

with decorative endpapers pasted to the cover

But you'd expect this book to last wouldn't you. It is made of good quality material and is only carried to and fro once a month. I continually stress that bookbinding is really a hobby you can do anywhere with any materials so here's the next example.

This cover is standard card stock, aprox. 100gsm with this stupid 'leather' grain effect that I quite detest but was the only choice. This was a test print of the linoblock (it got some modifications for the final use) but I realized I needed a new book so it become this cover.

The binding is a 3-thread 'modified leather binding' with the threads braided to form the closure. You may notice an extra loose loop there. That happened when the book got caught by a cat who would not let go. It has not affected the book's use.

Here you can see the traces of wear on the cover. It has been wet, bent, the aforementioned cat, and generally not treated all that well. But then again, this book has been in daily use for almost a year. It is continually shoved in and out of bags and carried through a variety of archaeological environments (i.e. filthy places). My fieldnotes and ogami notebooks have cleaner interior pages but the covers, quite frankly look the same amount of beat up.

So you can see that I mean it. Even the simplest books made out of the cheapest/only available options can be completely usable and durable.

Make books! Use them!

Mountains-Redux

Cover is of handmade blue paper and my linocut of the Alaskan mountains. It was my first attempt at oil printmaking and it...didn't go as planned. This cover however came out a success!

is it obvious to do the zig zag variation for mountain scenes? yes. do i care? no

Imagery

cover is from a linocut based upon the griffins from Avaris, Egypt

binding is multiple width double needle coptic

brushed with silver