Melting Snow

         This is the time of year when I start looking for signs of green sprouts poking up… But right now there’s still over a foot of snow over most of the beds where my bulbs have been sleeping, so I won’t be seeing them soon.  Still, the snow is melting bit by bit, the sugar maples are filling their sap buckets, and I’m ready to celebrate the not-quite-spring of this sometimes infuriating season.

        I start with this detailed wood engraving by Thomas Willoughby Nason (USA, 1889-1971), which is about what things look like around here: still grey, still covered in snow, except that the roofs and roads are mostly clear.

        The bright colors of the second piece are still to come; there’s certainly no sign of green grass yet.  Nevertheless, the days are getting longer, sure enough, and there’s plenty of meltwater around.  This piece comes from a book of acrostics by Steven Schnur with water-colored linoleum block prints by Leslie Evans.

        I don’t know how long it will be until it really starts feeling like spring around here, or when I’ll see my first green daffodil spears nosing up through last year’s matted leaves.  It could be a week or three…  But either way I won’t be marking the moment in this blog because I will once again be dedicating the second half of March and the whole of April to the annual April A to Z Blog Challenge.  Tune in next week when I reveal my theme for 2026!

      The place where I will be revelling in signs of spring is my Instagram, so feel free to join me there.  For a few more early spring block prints, you can revisit Spring Forward with Cheffetz and Early Spring.  And (if you’re in the northern hemisphere, anyway) keep your eyes sharp for any evidence of returning spring.  It can't be too much longer now! 

[Pictures: Melting Snow, wood engraving by Thomas Willoughby Nason, 1941 (Image from Amon Carter Museum of American Art);

THAW, hand-colored linoleum block print by Leslie Evans from WINTER: An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schnur, 2002.]

Birds of a Feather?

         A fellow author I’m acquainted with posted a quiz like this on her Instagram a while ago and I thought it was a fun idea.  I’ve been waiting quite some time to do it, and since I’ve just started posting things for March Meet the Maker, it finally seemed to be the right moment.  Here’s how it works…

        I’ve chosen all kinds of little trivia facts about myself, and for each thing that you share with me, give yourself a point.  At the end, tell me how many points we have in common!  According to my calculation there are a total of 48 points possible, including bonuses, but admittedly there’s probably some ambiguity in how one could choose to count things.  That’s fine - the exact score doesn’t matter; it’s just about seeing how we connect.

        The funny thing about putting this together is that of course it’s very difficult and fairly arbitrary to try to pick a handful of things to share.  How can I choose just 9 favorite books, for example?  I first sketched these cards out quite a while ago and if I were starting from scratch today I’d probably make some different choices.  For example, it’s been a while since I even thought about “Ted Lasso,” but I left it on my list because I did enjoy it very much while it was on (and I don’t watch a ton of TV).  So while any list of this sort is woefully incomplete and hardly a perfect reflection, everything on here is certainly true and I stand by it!

I should also note that the items are in no particular order on each card.  So, are you ready?

        Here we go:

1. BOOKS

     Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

     Frances Hodgson Burnett, A Little Princess

     Becky Chambers, A Psalm for the Wild-Built

     Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

     Dorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter Wimsey Series

     Josephine Tey, Brat Farrar

     J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

     Terry Pratchett, Night Watch Series

     Ursula K. LeGuin, The Tombs of Atuan

2. ON-SCREEN

     “Casablanca”

     “Raiders of the Lost Ark”

     “Much Ado About Nothing”

     Wallace & Gromit

     “Ted Lasso”

     Brokenwood Mysteries

     Archaeology Documentaries

3. MUSIC

     Dvorak (especially Symphonies 7 & 9)

     Simon & Garfunkel (especially “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” and “The Sound of Silence”)

     Vivaldi (especially The Four Seasons)

     “I Will Survive” Gloria Gaynor

     Mendelssohn (especially Symphonies 4 & 5)

     Cheesy 80s Music

     Beethoven (especially Symphonies 5 & 9)

     Big Band/Swing

     Assorted…

     +1 Bonus if you play the cello

4. RANDOM LIFE FACTOIDS

     Artist (+1 Bonus for relief printmaking)

     Author (+1 Bonus for writing poetry, speculative fiction, or happy endings)

     Parent (+1 Bonus for twins)

     Quaker

     Teacher (+1 Bonus for teaching middle school or art)

     Amateur Linguist (+1 Bonus for having a degree in linguistics)

5. ASSORTED LOVES & INTERESTS

     Libraries

     Backyard Wildlife

     Mythical Creatures

     Octopuses

     Quiltmaking

     History

     Daffodils

     Purrs

     Houseplants

        (And of course since these are things I love, many of them have shown up in this blog before, so I’ve linked a few things that seemed related.  And if you want to do it on Instagram, you can find that here.)

        How did you score?  I can’t wait to hear how much we have in common!

#MarchMeetTheMaker2026 #MarchMeetTheMaker

Words of the Month - Competence Porn

         Some people love to watch dumpster fires or train wrecks, relishing the dysfunctional dramas in reality shows or the disastrous crashes in car races.  I can’t stand that; I prefer to watch people doing things well.  At the Olympics I want every athlete to perform to the best of their abilities, and in fiction I want to see characters do amazing things.  I like competence porn.  I was reminded of this term recently when it was raised at a panel I attended at Boskone about the lure of heist stories.  One of the reasons people enjoy heists is for the pleasure of seeing all the members of the team perform their amazing special feats to pull off the seemingly impossible task: mastermind, hacker, con artist, safe cracker, thief…  When they do their jobs well it’s competence porn.

        Since this is a Words of the Month post, let’s look at the derivation of the term.  Competence comes from Latin roots meaning “meeting together, agreement, symmetry,” which feels particularly appropriate for those heist teams, but the word actually has a somewhat tangled back story.  In the sixteenth century the word competence had two definitions, both now obsolete.  One was “rivalry,” deriving from compete, which feels particularly appropriate for the Olympics.  In other words, that root of “working together” could be taken to mean either striving together on the same side of an issue, or striving together on opposite sides.  But at the same time the other definition was “adequate supply,” as in competency, pulling on the idea of things coming together in a fitting way.  In the early eighteenth century we got the legal definition of “capability or fitness to testify in court,” and by the end of the 18th century that sense had broadened to the definition I’m talking about today: “adequate ability, sufficient skill” for whatever task.  By this definition competence is more like a minimum threshold, however.  In today’s term competence porn we’re referring to things done not just adequately but done masterfully well.

        Porn, of course, is short for pornography, the abbreviation not appearing in print until around 1960.  (However, who knows how long people had been using the term in the sorts of conversations that didn’t get published!)  Interestingly, the first pornography - to be called by that name, anyway - was obscene paintings in the ancient temples of Bacchus.  This was around 1840, and English got the word from French which had borrowed it from the Greek word meaning “depicting prostitutes.”  You can see the -graphy root that shows up in so many other words for writing, recording, carving, or describing things.  It wasn’t long before the word  pornography was applied to certain French novels, but apparently not until the early 20th century was it applied to pictures other than those original murals.  In 1964 we got the famous Supreme Court opinion in which Justice Potter Stewart said that he couldn’t define “hard-core” pornography, “But I know it when I see it.”

        Recently, however, the word porn seems to be acquiring a broader and generally more benign sense, starting with the term food porn.  In 1977 Alexander Cockburn wrote “True gastro-porn heightens the excitement and also the sense of the unattainable by proffering colored photographs of various completed recipes,” in which statement the parallel is drawn between alluring food photography and provocative sexual photography.  In this instance it’s less about any specific connection between food and sex and more about the ways the presentation of each can be made to appeal to the sensual and even to the voyeuristic allure of potentially “illicit” unhealthy foods.  By the early 2000s, however, the sense of the “porn” in food porn was ameliorated still further to mean simply “material presenting something desirable in an especially aesthetically appealing or sensational manner.”

        The term property porn appeared in 2005 to describe the luscious and alluring photos of desirable luxury properties in glossy magazines, and various other “porns” have been used, although I certainly have no intention of searching for porn on the internet in order to find you more examples.  (I do hope the writing of this post won’t get me attacked by the wrong sorts of algorithms!)  And finally we get to today’s term competence porn, which was coined in 2009 by John Rogers about the television show “Leverage,” which he created.  So yes, heists are in fact the quintessential example of competence porn.

        I don’t love this term or this usage of the word porn because in general I dislike the linguistic mushing together of positive and negative, healthy and unhealthy, such as “sick” or “wicked” meaning “good,” or “ kill” or “slay” meaning “to do a good job.”  (On the other hand, you can read about some other examples of linguistic amelioration in my prior post Scary Good.)  But I do absolutely enjoy seeing advanced skills performed with exceptional proficiency, so while I might wish for a better name for it, I still say “Bring it on.”

[Pictures: Okuda Sadaemon Yukitaka, woodblock print by Ogata Gekkō, 1902 (Image from The British Museum);

Detail from Ninja, woodcut by Katsushika Hokusai, ca. 1814 (Image from Artsy).]

Year of the Horse

         Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year!  Here’s a pleasing little relief block print (I’m guessing linoleum) depicting fireworks being set off in a Chinatown Street in 1936 or so.  It’s by Julio de Diego (Spain/USA, 1900-1979).  I particularly like how the texture of the gouges makes a pattern on the white facade of the building, and on the sidewalk.  This piece does a great job capturing the gleam of all the lights at night: the firework, the traffic light, and the restaurant signs.

        We are now entering the year of the horse, so here are a few horses to set the tone.  First, here’s one by Urushibara Mokuchū (Japan, 1888-1953).  It’s of the style that reproduces the look of brush painting, with tapered and feathered lines and shades of lighter ink as well as black.  The background, too, has been printed with a transparent wash so that the wood grain

shows.  This is one of a series of horses all similar but in different poses.

        And I also have for you two “H is for Horse” illustrations from alphabets I’ve featured before.  Mary Azarian’s horses are standing in the barn doorway, possibly being geared up to get to work pulling a cart.  This seems like a fine sentiment for the start of a new year: get ready to get to work!  The other horse here is by Enid Marx.  I’m not sure I trust the expression in its eye, but I do like its spots, as well as all the elements of the background, from clouds to trees, to ground.

        This is specifically the year of the fire horse, which allegedly will be good for the arts, which I appreciate, but not good for the climate or the tensions of strained relationships, which does not bode well for the world.  Luckily my children are horses, so this should be good for them, and my husband and I are dogs, which are supposedly also going to have stability and financial rewards this year.

        I happen to look at all of this purely as fantasy (and an excuse for relief block prints), but you know I do like fantasy, so we’ll see where the plot takes us!

[Pictures: New Year in China Town, relief print by Julio de Diego, 1936 (Image from Art Institute Chicago);

Horse (D), woodblock print by Urushibara Mokuchū, 1960 (Image from Minneapolis Institute of Art);

Horse, wood block print by Mary Azarian, from A Farmer's Alphabet, 1981;

H, wood block print by Enid Marx from Marco’s Animal Alphabet, 1979 (Image from the Saleroom).]

Signpost: of Alchemists and Illustrations

         This weekend I’ll be at Boskone, so here’s the usual roundup of posts that I think people attending my various panels may wish to refer to.  In addition, since one of the panels is on illustration and we don’t have a big screen to show visual aids, I thought I’d post some examples of various illustration techniques I’ve used, so that the curious can have a look.

Block Printing Demo and Mini Workshop - You can always find my handout here.  Plus here are a few posts with some basic printmaking instructions and projects you could try.  (Or if you want more options, try the Step-By-Step label.)

        First Experiments

        Everyday Printmaking Supplies

        One Inch Stamp Project

        Block Prints: Ink or No Ink

Using Different Art Mediums for Illustration - Obviously my primary medium is relief block printmaking, but in addition I’ve used “faux block printing” done digitally, and I’ve done collage (a hybrid of physical collage and digital manipulation of scanned pieces).  The first picture above is a rubber block print illustration from Hey, Diddle Diddle! and Other Rhymes.

        Next is a spread from On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination.  I did an entire A to Z series on the book, with lots of illustrations here.

        Then here’s a selection of illustrations from The Extraordinary Book of Doors.  Some are block prints, such as the Autumn Clematis in Springtime, while others are Faux Woodcuts.

        And then I’ve posted one of the block prints for my next book, Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, coming in April!  (This book will be the subject of this year’s A to Z Challenge, so I won’t say more about it yet.)

        Here’s a post about another book I illustrated with block prints: This Holy Day

        And here’s one with a real and a faux print from another project: Periodic Table of Aliens

        Moving on to other mediums I’ve used for illustration, A is for Arches shows a collagraph/gelli print/collage that appears in Bittersweetness & Light.

       The next picture here today includes two of my page spreads for the picture book Approved!, which I illustrated with a collage process that involved both actual collage and digitally manipulating collage elements that I scanned.  You can read just a little bit about it here.

        And finally, there’s a picture of some quilts I’ve made.  They aren’t illustrations in a book, but it’s a technique that certainly could be used for illustration.  And another quilt “illustration” posted here.

All About Alchemy and Alchemists - Here’s a collection of posts that are at least alchemy-adjacent

        The Philosopher’s Stone - the history, background, and how to make it

        Mystery Manuscript - the Voynich Manuscript

        The Prague Golem

        G is for Gnome - just a mention of alchemist Paracelsus

        Elizabeth I - contains a brief excerpt from the dedication of an alchemy text by Rabbards

        I Give You Athanasius Kircher - my favorite seventeenth century polymath

                plus Kircher’s Dragons!

        In addition, as always, there will be the readings with Broad Universe and lots of work (72 pieces!) in the Art Show.  I’m so very grateful that I get to do these things I love and share them with others!

[Pictures: Jack Sprat, and His Wife Rosie, rubber block print from Hey, Diddle Diddle! and Other Rhymes by AEGNydam, 2005;

Of the Qilin, rubber block print illustration from On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination by AEGNydam, 2019;

A collection of doors, illustrations from The Extraordinary Book of Doors by AEGNydam, 2014;

Incident at Bullion Mill, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2025 (Image from NydamPrints.com);

Illustrations, collage by AEGNydam from Approved! by Nancy L. Haines, 2016;

Animal Houses on the Water, quilts by AEGNydam, 2004.]

Library Loving

         February is National Library Lovers’ Month, and I certainly count myself in that category.  Books, of course, are magic: stories shared across space and time straight from one human spirit to another, even when their bodies could never meet in real life, and couldn’t understand one another if they did.  Books are magical threads of connection, and libraries are a multiplication of books: the promise of all those stories, all those characters, all those adventures, all those ideas, all that beauty, excitement, creativity, love, discovery, knowledge, connection…  So it’s not a coincidence that over the years I’ve done lots of art and writing involving libraries.  Here are some of the highlights.

        This first piece is entitled “A Glimpse of Paradise,” because paradise is what a library can be.  The only things missing in this particular view are a comfy chair and a spiral staircase.  You can read all about the making of this piece in my blog post about it.

        The next two pieces make the magic of libraries a little more literal.  In “Bookby-upon-Shelf” the books become dwellings for lucky little people who go in and out walking dogs, watering pot plants, hanging out laundry, and greeting the local book dragon.  Of course the books also house a library of their own in two volumes right in the center of the piece.  If you’re curious about all the other books in this town, you can check out my blog post about it, and learn some of the technical challenges of carving and printing a piece this large, as well as an explanation of all the titles.

        “When the Reader’s Away” the books will play, of course.  In this piece I’ve moved from the idea of living in books to the idea that books have a life and spirit of their own.  These books look to be in a personal rather than a public library, but it’s still the case that when books are gathered their power multiplies as they converse with each other, offering their various different perspectives.

Although portraying the idea in a literal way is whimsical and light, it’s absolutely true that we often use language that unconsciously reflects this idea: What this book is trying to say is…  This book really spoke to me…  It showed me how to do this…  It took me on a journey…

        And finally, here’s a piece in which the library is the setting for a very special creature called “The Grand Marhoot.”  If you want to know more about the Grand Marhoot and why she’s shown in a library, you can read my blog post about it.

        As for stories that involve libraries, you could read

     Vision Revealed (Book 4 of the Otherworld Series), which features Nulif, a librarian/archaeologist, and a description of the Great Collection of K’Ten where he works

     The Extraordinary Book of Doors, which has one scene of hiding and chasing in an unnamed library discovered through one of the book's magical doors

     “In Which the Librarian Delves for Living Words in a Time of Drought” (short story in Bittersweetness & Light), in which a librarian spelunks into a book in order to retrieve treasure for people who are starving because of shuttered libraries

        (You can find more information about all these books here.)

        What’s your favorite library - real or fictional?  Who’s your favorite librarian?  What’s your favorite book featuring a library?

[Pictures: A Glimpse of Paradise, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2011 (originals sold out);

Bookby-upon-Shelf, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2016 (originals sold out);

When the Reader's Away, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2023 (originals sold out);

The Grand Marhoot, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2017 (Image from NydamPrints).]

Word of the Month - Sports

         Sports.  This one simple word, which we’ll be hearing an awful lot of as the Superbowl and the Winter Olympics take over conversation next month, actually has a lot of interesting linguistic stuff going on.  The etymology goes back to Middle English, about 1300 when Anglo-French disport meant “pleasure, enjoyment” as a noun, as well as a verb meaning “to take pleasure or amuse oneself.”  The roots here are dis- meaning “away” plus -port meaning “to carry,” as in porter, portage, import, export, deport, and even important (but that’s  a story for another day).  So basically, the roots of disport meant “to carry away.”  Disport was shortened into sport around 1400.  So it’s interesting to note that sports didn’t begin as serious competitions of physical skills and rivalry, but simply as escapist entertainment.

        The second interesting thing about the word sport is that when it was shortened from disport, it was not broken at the etymological boundary, but in the middle of the prefix.  This is a sort of metanalysis, which you can read more about in my post about The Wandering N.

        Next, the more specific verb meaning “amuse oneself with outdoor exercise” arrived in the late 1400s, and the noun meaning “game involving physical exercise” arrived around 1520.  But the broader meanings of general entertainment and pleasure still continued in use for quite a while.  Although the broader meaning is now mostly obsolete you can still see it in the phrase in sport, meaning “just for fun, joking,”  as well as in the nursery rhyme where “The little dog laughed to see such sport.”  The noun meanings “a person exhibiting good or bad sportsmanship” and “a good fellow, amiable person” are later developments from the latter half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth.

        Another interesting thing is the subtle difference in usage between British and American English.  Both can talk about a single sport, such as “the sport of football,” or “field hockey is my favorite sport,” and both can talk about the plurality of sports as in “Medals will be awarded in 116 sports at the 2026 Winter Olympics.”  But for the general, uncountable category of athletic activity, British English says “I love watching sport,” while American English says “I love watching sports.”  One can make a logical defense of either version, but it’s really got nothing to do with logic.  For some reason at some point the usage pattern diverged, but for this I can find neither explanation nor dates, I’m very sorry to say.

        So, will you be watching sport or sports this February?  Do you have a favorite sport or do you not care about sport(s) at all?  And if what you really care about is block prints depicting sport(s), check out my prior posts Winter Olympics and Winter Games.

[Picture: Halted, woodcut by Lillian Scalzo, ca. 1935 (Image from Armstrong Fine Art);

Hockey Players, color woodcut by Louis Schanker, 1940 (Image from MoMA).]