Working Hard

        Tomorrow is Roslindale Open Studios, and on Monday I’m giving a linguistics talk, so I have been hard at work preparing.  Today I also have the hard physical work of hauling my display racks, tables, and boxes of books and art up from the basement and packing them into the car for an early start tomorrow.  So I thought it would be fun to find a block print of workers hauling boxes, maybe stevedores or construction workers.  To my surprise, I couldn’t find what I was thinking of, although I can’t imagine that none exists.  But I did find this wood block print by Mike Goscinsky of Pittsburgh steel workers changing shifts.  I really like its mix of detailed realism and abstracted pattern.  The building at the center is quite realistic, but the two on the sides look stylized, patterned, and almost doodled.  The line of workers are quite finely detailed, while the streams of smoke are boldly patterned.  The smoke and sky are especially interesting because the patterns don’t always follow the contours of the smoke puffs.  Altogether I find it very striking with lots of wonderful stylistic elements.

        If you’re local, be sure to come to Roslindale Open Studios this weekend.  (I'll be at Roslindale House.)  It’s always a beautiful show with lots of great buzz, the weather should be unseasonably gorgeous, and I have two new designs to carve that I’m really excited about.

[Picture: Shift Change, woodcut by Mike Goscinsky (Image from his Etsy shop MikesOriginalPrints).]