Heavy is the Head

         Here is an interesting woodcut from about 1540-50, by an unidentified Italian artist.  The subject of this portrait is Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire, but really the subject is the sultan’s magnificent jewel-studded helmet-crown, completed in 1532.  This helmet-crown was a very deliberate piece of propaganda.  Designed with one more tier than the papal tiara, it sent a clear message that the ruler of the Ottoman Empire was more universal and more powerful than the Pope or the Holy Roman Emperor.  Süleyman wore it to all his diplomatic audiences with Hapsburg rulers as he set off toward Vienna, intent on conquest.  (This was his second attempt to conquer Vienna, and they both ended in defeat, by the way.)

        The helmet-crown was made by Venetian jewelers and goldsmiths and was displayed in Venice at the Doge’s Palace after its completion before it was delivered to Süleyman, and the assumption is that the artist of this woodcut saw the helmet-crown in Venice.  In that case the artist had presumably not seen Süleyman wearing the crown, but had chosen to depict it that way in order to further legitimize the sultan’s claim to authority.  This is a large print, almost three feet tall by over 20 inches wide, carved on (at least?) two blocks and printed over (at least?) three combined sheets of paper, so it was probably intended for public display.

        This alone makes me curious about whether the artist was merely making a piece he thought would be popular with curious patrons, or whether he was actually a fan of the Ottoman sultan.  It also makes me curious about how heavy this crown actually was, and how onerous it would be to wear the darn thing.  But what really struck me about this jewel-studded helmet-crown is how much it reminds me of the radio-crown in children’s story Five Golden Wrens by Hugh Troy from 1946.

        I’ve mentioned Five Golden Wrens before, at this post.  The story includes not only the king’s radio-crown, but also a scheming queen who commissions jewelers and goldsmiths to create an even more impressive crown, which she wears on her diplomatic visit.  I can’t help wondering whether author-illustrator Troy could have been inspired by this woodcut of Süleyman the Magnificent’s helmet-crown!  Not only are the crowns similar, but so is Troy’s style of pen and ink drawing, showing every whisker of the king’s beard.  It’s certainly plausible that he could have seen a copy of this at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (although it is not currently on display), or elsewhere.  (I saw it in an exhibit at the Harvard Art Museum.  The version on top is at the Met, the version on the bottom is the one I saw at Harvard, owned by the Boston MFA.  They are not dated accurately enough to give a clue about why there are two versions, which came first, and whether they’re done by the same artist.  My guess would be that the second is a pirated version of the first, but I could be totally wrong about that.)

        Inspiration for stories can certainly come from all sorts of places, and I’d love to imagine that this woodcut from a turbulent time in Europe’s history provided inspiration to Troy during another turbulent time.  What do you think?

[Pictures: Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent, woodcut by anonymous artist, ca. 1540-50 (Images from The Met and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston);

Illustrations by Hugh Troy from Five Golden Wrens, 1946.]

Falling Short but Aiming High

         Frederick Douglass said, “Poets, prophets, and reformers are all picture-makers – and this ability is the secret of their power and of their achievements.  They see what ought to be by the reflection of what is, and endeavor to remove the contradiction.”  Artists are, of course, also picture-makers, and on Juneteenth it seems to me appropriate to share a linocut by Elmer William Brown (USA, 1909-1971).  Its carving is full of light and shadow, with dramatic dark-clouded sky and double outlines, both black and white, at the edges of many shapes.  I particularly like the pattern of the ground radiating out from the shovel, and the little cliff and tree to the left.  Its subject is a white overseer and a black chain gang, with all-too-many similarities to the abolished system of chattel slavery in the south.  The overseer looks scrawny and mean, the conditions rough, and an air of oppressive drama hangs over it.  Apparently the artist Brown had been incarcerated himself, for riding a freight chain illegally as a hobo, so he presumably had very personal emotions about the scene.

        This piece is showing “the reflection of what is,” in Douglass’s words, in order to get us to hold it up beside our ideals and see where we need to remove the contradiction.  Juneteenth is a commemoration simultaneously of celebration of the end of slavery, but also frustration and mourning that the promised freedom did not reach everyone as quickly or as completely as it should.  I believe it’s always important both to see the failures that exist but also to continue to hold up the ideals of what is possible without giving in to cynicism.

        (One final note.  A number of sources attribute the quotation from Douglass to a lecture he gave at Boston Tremont Temple in 1861.  However, I cannot actually confirm it in any primary source, which makes me uncomfortable.  Well, I’ve already spent enough time trying to track it down, so I just give you the caveat and leave it at that.  And of course if anyone can point me to the source, I’d be happy to see it!)

[Picture: Ol’ Peckerwood, linocut by Elmer William Brown, 1939 (Image from The Cleveland Museum of Art).]

Tribute to Jane Yolen

         Jane Yolen (USA, 1939-2026) was a giant in the world of speculative fiction, children’s books, and poetry.  She was the author or editor of over 450 books, including winners of the Caldecott Medal (Owl Moon), Nebula Award (Lost Girls), Locus Award (Pay the Piper), and World Fantasy Award (The Emerald Circus), plus she received a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.  I can’t add anything substantive to the recent articles celebrating her work, but I do want to acknowledge her life.

        In 2021 I was on a Poetry Reading panel with Yolen during the Boskone convention, and I was absolutely thrilled to be rubbing shoulders with some towering figures.  (Not just Jane Yolen - just look at this line-up!)  We had an absolute blast, making up silly little verses together as we waited for the panel to begin, admiring each other’s poems, and enjoying the great audience, as well.  Being in February of 2021, however, this convention was held on-line.  Afterwards I had a brief email correspondence with Yolen and then in subsequent years a couple of brief conversations with her at other (in-person) cons, mostly on the topic of Quakerism, which she had for a while been involved with.  In all of this she was gregarious, encouraging, and with a fun sense of humor.  I very much appreciated meeting her.

        Of course a blog about fantasy, with a special focus on juvenile fantasy, could hardly run for very long without mentioning some of Jane Yolen’s books.  Here are some prior posts in which I mentioned works of hers.

Fairy Tale Retellings (Briar Rose)

Feminist Fantasy Picture Books (Not One Damsel in Distress)

Monsters and Aliens (“The Giraft”)

Dinosaur Fantasy (How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?)

        On a seemingly unrelated note, in 2025 I did a Poet Laureate collaboration with Needham Open Studios in which I recruited artists to host Poetry Stations where visitors could collect ekphrastic poems: poems written in response to and about works of visual art.  The strange coincidence is that among the 10 poems I chose to be distributed, one was by Jane Yolen while another was a poem of my own inspired by a painting by David Hockney, who also happened to die on June 11, 2026.  I include them both here. (Don't forget you can click on the picture to make them big enough to read.)

        Jane Yolen will certainly be missed, but she leaves a huge legacy of thoughtful, sometimes funny, sometimes powerful, imaginative work for all ages.

[Pictures: Boskone58 program details, 2021, illustration by Julie Dillon;

“Grant Wood: American Gothic,” poem by Jane Yolen from Heart to Heart, ed. Greenberg, 2001; American Gothic, painting by Grant Wood, 1930 (Image from Art Institute of Chicago);

“Remembering Dreams,” poem by AEGNydam, 2025; Garrowby Hill, painting by David Hockney, 1998 (Image from Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).]

Jigsaw Printing

         The jigsaw method of printing is a way to print multiple colors while carving only one block.  The basic idea is that after carving a block you cut it apart into separate pieces for each color.  You can then ink each piece separately with a different color of ink, reassemble the inked block (hence the term “jigsaw”) and then print it all together as one block.  This has the advantage of saving time, as you’re pressing only once, and it also has the advantage of ensuring that all the different colors are perfectly lined up every time, which can be difficult when printing separately.

        I tend to think of this as a modern method, but in fact it was used in the second major book printed with moveable type in Europe: the Mainz psalter of 1457.  The Gutenberg Bible (about which you can read more here) included both black and red ink, but after a brief experiment with printing each page twice for the two colors, Gutenberg decided it was easier to print just once and have someone add the red letters by hand afterwards.  The Mainz psalter, printed by Johann Fust and Peter Schöffer, who had split from Gutenberg, included black, red, and blue ink.  It appears to have been printed with just one pressing for each page, meaning that the colored initials were inked separately and then set into the forme with the black letters.  And even more to the point for the jigsaw technique, the extra-fancy woodcut initials that include both red and blue ink were cut so that the letter slid apart from the ornamental surround, so they could be inked in two separate colors and then fit back together.

        Just for fun, I’ve included here for you the same letter B, once from the 1457 edition and once from 1459, because I think it’s interesting that the blue and red are reversed.

        Jigsaw printing is a technique I’ve wanted to try for a while, and I’ve just done a first simple experiment with this cat luxuriating on a comfy blanket.  The thing is, though, that Fust and Schöffer, as well as today’s artists who use the technique, use oil-based ink.  This allows them all the time in the world to ink as many different little bits of the block as they need and carefully reassemble them all before printing.  Because I generally use water-based ink which dries much more quickly, I don’t have time to ink multiple pieces and put them together before getting my paper pressed onto the reassembled block.  So this piece, while carved jigsaw style, was actually printed with each of the two pieces separate.  That meant I did still have the challenge of registration (getting the separate pressings to line up). 

        Despite not getting the full advantage of having my pieces reassembled before pressing, I’m still pretty pleased with this latest Cat Art.  (My next show isn’t until the fall, so I won’t know until then whether other people find it pleasing, too.)  At some point I may try a proper jigsaw block with oil-based ink - I do have a couple of ideas - but I confess that getting out multiple colors of oil-based ink at once may be a bigger mess than I have room for.  In any case, though, it’s an interesting technique.

[Pictures: Ornamental B and C, wood block prints from Mainz Psalter, 1457 (Images from University of Manchester);

Ornamental B and D, wood block prints from Mainz Psalter, 1459 (Images from Bodleian Libraries);

Life of Luxury, rubber block print by AEGNydam, plus photos of block, 2026 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]

Creature Collections: Hidden Worlds

         Most of the Creature Collections I’ve featured over the years take the form of encyclopedias or field guides, listing a range of fantastical creatures said to be found in our world.  (If you’d like to see all the Creature Collections so far, look in the sidebar or here.)  Today I’m highlighting some books that play with the conceit of discovering different worlds of creatures.  Each of these books has actually been mentioned before in this blog, but I thought they deserved to be pulled together under the Creature Collections category.

        The Land of Neverbelieve, by Norman Messenger - This lavish book is the record of a visit to a mysterious island and the strange things seen there.  The watercolor and colored pencil illustrations are dreamlike, and the pages fold out to give even more room for pictures.  There is no story or apparent order to the information gathered here and Messenger's imagination has wandered freely, so there's a lot to look at.  Back when she was much younger my daughter T especially liked all the funny trees with their surreal shapes and produce.  I featured a few of these plants in my series of posts on the Botany of the Realms of Imagination: giant curly ferns, umbrella palms, and spaghetti trees.

However there are plenty of creatures in this book, as well!

Amarant, by Una Woodruff - This one reproduces the sketches and watercolors of a seventeenth century noblewoman whose travels brought her to the mysterious island of Amarantos, which was once known as Atlantis.  As a botanist, our artist was focussing her observations on plants, but the book finds its place among my creature collections because so many of the plants of Amarantos happen to be plant-animals hybrids with insects, birds, all kinds of other creatures, and even dragons.  This makes a fun coffee table book, excellent simply for admiring the pictures, however it dates back to 1981 and is no longer readily available.  I was lucky to find a used copy.  In past posts you can see the flower of immortality and a couple of insect-plants, as well as the Dragon Vine and Dillcorn.

        Codex Seraphinianus, by Luigi Serafini - This one is a little different in that it includes no story whatsoever, and all the text is written in an imaginary alphabet of some sort.  One chapter is on plants and you can see spreads of those illustrations here and here, but there are also chapters on machines and vehicles, cultural items, architecture, and of course creatures.  It’s another one that’s best for browsing through, and it’s beautiful, surreal, very weird, and definitely an oddity.  (Also first published in 1981, so clearly there was something in the air that year.)

        Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, by James Gurney - The creatures in this book (followed by a series of books and other media) are not fantasy per se, since dinosaurs did of course actually exist.  But this is a fantasy version of dinosaurs, in which they have survived and evolved in intelligence but not form, and now are living in a collaborative society with humans.  As with the other books in today’s post, it’s the beauty of the illustrations that provides the appeal.  Like the others it’s in the form of an explorer’s notebook recording all the amazing things he discovers, and the magic of the book is in inviting us to immerse ourselves in the gorgeous pictures of wondrous things.  You can see mention of

Dinotopia along with some illustrations of these magical dinosaurs in a Steep Street, a Skybax rider, and Treetown.

        This is exactly the sort of book I was constantly devising in my childhood, with maps and short explanations, along with pictures of people, buildings, landscapes, and plenty of fantastical creatures.  Of course, my little booklets were neither as comprehensive nor as expertly illustrated as these!  If you’re in the mood for a strange and wondrous armchair journey, I recommend a look at any of these books, if you can find them.

[Pictures: Of Marsh and Stream, illustration by Norman Messenger from The Land of Neverbelieve, 2012;

Unicorn bird, illustration by Una Woodruff from Amarant, 1981;

Illustration by Luigi Serafini from Codex Seraphinianus, 1981;

Skybax Rider over Dinotopia, painting by James Gurney, c 1992 (Image from Heritage Auctions).]

Words of the Month - Speaking of Trees

         This month I have for you the etymologies of a number of words relating to plants, and especially trees.  Not surprisingly, many plant-related words in English go right back to Old English in a straight and unbroken line, so there isn’t really much to say about them.  These include root, stem, seed, leaf, bud, and tree itself.  After all, plants are an absolutely basic and vital part of the environment, so these are exactly the sorts of words that can remain in relatively stable use for many centuries.  But there are also some words that hide interesting secrets in their past.

trunk - entered English from Old French in the 15th c., meaning both “woody stem of a tree” and “torso of a body.”  The definition “box or case” probably comes from the idea of the body as a “case” for organs, rather than because a trunk is made from wood.  Some other trunk-related words include

        (swim) trunks - ca. 1880 from the “torso” definition

        truncheon - ca. 1300 from Old North French, from the idea of a supporting length of wood

        bronco - ca. 1850 from a Spanish adjective meaning “rough, rude.”  And the origin of that may actually be a Latin portmanteau word that meant “knot in wood,” made by blending broccus “projecting” with truncus “trunk.”

bark - entered English ca. 1300 from a Scandinavian language, and is related to the birch tree.  The original OE word for bark has come down to us in Modern English as rind.  (The ship and the dog’s sound are unrelated.  Even when “barking up the wrong tree” it isn’t the tree’s bark that we’re talking about.)

branch - entered English ca. 1300, ultimately from Latin branca meaning “footprint,”  because of the shape.  I picture a bird’s footprint, which really is perfect.  The original OE word for branch has come to us as bough, and we also get limb, which acquired its silent b along the way for no known reason.  I just love that English revels in so many synonyms - and that’s not even getting into the smaller branches like twig, shoot, sprig, spray, tendril, sucker, stick, switch, stalk, withe…

flower - entered English ca. 1200 from Old French, from Latin.  Later in the 13th c. it gained the figurative meaning of “the best or ideal of something,” and thus the very best part of wheat was called flour.  The differentiation in spelling between the two meanings occurred in the late 14th c.  The original OE word for flower has come to us as blossom, and the Old Norse version has come to us as bloom.

pollen - Used as botanical term by Linnaeus in 1751 and soon after used in English, this is from Latin for “mill dust or fine flour.”  It’s related to polenta.

nectar - First used in English in the 1550s as the Greek drink of the gods, the word comes from roots meaning “overcoming death.”  It broadened to mean any “delicious drink” by the 1580s, and got its botanical meaning by about 1600.

fruit - entered English in the late 12th c. from Latin “to enjoy.”  Originally it referred to all plant-based products of the soil, but the sense narrowed to our modern definition around the early 13th c.

        fruition - from early 15th c, originally meant “the act of enjoying”from the Latin.  The definition of “bearing fruit” didn’t come until the late 19th century, and seems to have been one of those cases where speakers didn’t really know the proper definition and assumed the word must have something to do with “fruit.”  Prescriptivists resisted this shift in meaning, and I’m sure I’d have been right there with them at the time, although the new definition has now triumphed completely.

        Now, with all those wonderful green, growing words, are you ready to get out into your garden or the nearest park you can find?

[Pictures: Holding On, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2010 (Originals sold out);

Pleasant to the Eyes & Good for Food, rubber block reduction print by AEGNydam, 2025 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]

Dandelions

         Another short, sweet post as I prepare for Balticon this weekend and Newton Open Studios next weekend.  As dandelion season gets going here, enjoy these two charming dandelions.

        First, one by Linnane Armstrong, which makes particularly excellent use of the block carving medium.  The wedge shapes of the gauges make great petals on the left dandelion flower, and the use of simple poked dots works well for the part where the seeds have detached, while the background “noise” of little lines adds to the sense of fluffy seeds flying away in the wind.

        And then for contrast, here’s a little chapter tailpiece design by Walter Crane, which looks more like ink than carving.  I’m not sure whether it is, in fact, an ink drawing that was carefully carved as a block for printing purposes, or whether it was reproduced in the book by some other process.  In any case, though, it’s got an excellent Arts and Crafts style vibe in the stylized symmetry of the arrangement.

        Dandelions are not always loved here in the suburbs, but I’ve got a soft spot for them.  You can see more that I’ve shared in the past: dandelion block prints by Angie Lewin, Diana Pomeroy, and myself here and here.  (Plus a couple of my poems that feature dandelions in all their enchantment, here and here.)

[ Pictures: Fly, Fly Away, linocut by Linnane Armstrong, 2012 (The link where I originally found this image is no longer active, but you can find the artist here: Linnane Armstrong, Artist);

Chapter tailpiece, illustration by Walter Crane from Wonder Book for Girls & Boys by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1892/3 (Image from Internet Archive, New York Public Library).]

Spring Outings

         Here are two wood block prints depicting people enjoying the beauties of springtime.  First is a wonderful piece by Wang Qi (China, 1918-2016).  The people are small but they are fairly detailed, and they have plenty of character in their postures even though their faces are too small to have features.  What I really love, however, is the trees.  The trunks have gorgeous textures, the branches have wonderful sweeping gestures, and the silhouettes and outlines balance perfectly against the background patterns of leaves and white sky.  This is a completely everyday scene of ordinary people going about their lives beside various buildings (even if the buildings do have interesting Chinese architecture), but the harmony of the composition and carving elevates it to a quiet celebration.

        A second piece on a similar theme is by Hiroshige (Japan, 1797-1858), but this time the waterway takes center stage.  There are once again tiny people gathered on the shores enjoying the flowering of the spring trees, but for the most part these trees are much less detailed or distinctive.  My favorite is the weeping tree in the middle with its sparkling white blossoms.

        I definitely prefer the emphasis on pattern and texture to the emphasis on washes of color, but I’m not going to complain about anyone who celebrates the beauty of springtime - and the importance of going outside to enjoy it - through the medium of block printing.

[Pictures: Spring Outing, woodcut by Wang Qi, 1979 (Image from Ashmolean);

Fukagawa hatiman yamabiraki (Open Garden at Fukagawa Hachiman Shrine), wood block print by Hiroshige, 1857 (Image from Library of Congress).]

Statement on the Use of “AI,” and Other News

         As the dust settles on the A to Z Blog Challenge, the rest of my work continues as busy as ever.  This post, therefore, is dedicated to news and notices, and among these I think it’s high time I joined every other author and artist in the universe by making a statement on the use of AI.  Let’s start with some points about definitions and parameters.  1.  Even to call these programs “Artificial Intelligence” implies… intelligence.  Since humans have yet to figure out a clear definition for intelligence even among our own kind, I won’t get into the debate about IQ and Turing tests and all the other rigamarole about how to determine whether a machine (or any other entity) is intelligent.  I will say two things.  So far these systems seem to be purely plagiarism machines, and using them for plagiarism - which is theft - no matter how sophisticated, is morally unacceptable.  On the other hand, if they are intelligent and sentient, then keeping them as slaves to their corporate masters is certainly also morally unacceptable.  2.  Sure, there are absolutely amazing, world-bettering things that can or could be done with AI.  But when the entire system has been built on theft, and the entire system is being applied without oversight and purely for the profit of a few, then even the world-bettering uses become tainted by corruption.  3. Even within the category of “AI,” there’s a broad range of uses and applications, and the type that I’m talking about here is the “generative AI,” Large Language Models/LLMs.

        You can tell by the way I’m framing all of this that I’m not a fan of the use of generative AI for “creative” work.  First, there’s the issue that LLMs were built to steal the work of others without permission and use it to train themselves on plagiarizing that data to regurgitate it as “original” work.  But furthermore, if you prompt a computer to write a paper or a story or novel, and then you claim to be the author, you are lying.  If you prompt a computer to make a work of art and then you claim to be the artist, you are lying.  You’re also entirely missing the point of human creativity and human thought, which is simply sad.

        Unfortunately, AI systems are being crammed into everything, without permission, without choice, without the slightest consideration for what people actually need or want, and without apparent concern for ethics or even legality.  Therefore, I cannot say that I never use any AI of any kind, because it’s become so entangled into everything that I’m using it whether I want to or not, whether I know it or not.  That said, I can absolutely and unequivocally state that I have not, do not, and will not use generative AI in the creation of my own original work.  I do not use AI to draw designs for my block prints, for example, and nor do I use AI to draft, write, “make suggestions,” or edit any stage of my writing.  To the extent that I’m able I have turned off every AI option in the software that I use, or refrain from using those functions that utilize generative AI.  I want to exercise my own human spirit - my hands, my eyes, my brain, my heart - to create human works for the enjoyment of other humans.  I very much hope that I’m allowed to continue to do that, despite the best efforts of the big tech corporations.  Fun fact: did you know that if you end your internet searches with “-ai” it will (usually) not give you that AI summary that you didn’t ask for?

        And with that stated, let’s go on to other news…

        April being National Poetry Month, I once again wrote a Poem a Day, based on prompts provided primarily by NaPoWriMo and Writers Digest.  I’m sorry to report that this year I found myself struggling much more than last year, which was frustrating.  I’m not sure whether any of this year’s attempts will end up worth polishing and publishing, although perhaps a few will light me with some little spark when I go back and read them again.  You never know.  And of course when it comes right down to it, it’s the exercise that’s the point.

        I also had the opportunity to read my official Poet Laureate poem to my town at the kickoff of our Annual Town Meeting this month.  You can read that poem here.  There was a real theme in the meeting of keeping democracy alive, and I do believe that poetry, along with other arts, have a valuable role in that noble endeavor.

        Also, just in time for Mothers’ Day, I had my rubber block print “The Whole World” published in a very cool hand-bound Motherhood Anthology by little somethings press.  Because they’re based in Arizona I wasn’t able to participate in any of the workshops or events associated with the anthology, but I’m still very pleased that my artwork was able to be part of it.

        I do have exciting news about a couple of short stories that I hope to be able to share soon.  Plus I’ve got the Balticon sci fi/fantasy convention coming up in two weeks (May 22-25).  I’ll be participating virtually so I won’t get to be in the art show, but I’ve just seen my schedule and I’m very excited about the amazing panels I get to be on!  And then a week after that (May 30-31) I’ll be at Newton Open Studios, one of the three big “open studios” shows I do each year.  All good things, and I feel very lucky to be able to do this work!

[Pictures: Kraken, rubber block print by P. Nydam, 2025;

Photo of Needham Annual Town Meeting (I don’t know who took this photo), 2026;

Photos of Motherhood Anthology, including The Whole World, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2008;

Including In the Margin, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2024.]