Recollection and Dawn

         Today I want to share some amazing surreal wood engravings by Kayoko Moriyama (Japan, b. 1966).  Unfortunately there are two factors that are preventing me from really finding out as much as I’d like about these pieces.  Firstly, I don’t have very big images of most of these, and I’d really love to blow them up and look at every tiny detail more closely.  Still, I can at least see that there are all sorts of interesting things going on!  And secondly, a lot of the information about these pieces is in Japanese which I cannot read, so I’m working with some Google translate (which may or may not be accurate), and piecing together information from various sites.

        In any case, I first came across this piece “Dawn” on The Society of Wood Engravers web site.  Wood engravings are often irregular shapes because they are done on end grain, which is frequently simply rounds of trees.  This piece, at 22x17 cm, is quite large for a wood engraving, and there is a lot of detail crammed into that space.  What’s going on?  A whale carries a magical castle on its back, sprouting turrets and trees exuberantly.  The whole thing seems to be in the sky, with clouds in the background, and yet a swoosh as of

underwater bubbles wreaths it.  A girl runs after a dog up the stairs to the castle doorway.  Like most wood engravings, it’s all fine textures, from the stippling that gives the whale its shading to the different patterns on the castle walls and roofs.

        Another girl is running up another stairway in “Recollection,” a much smaller print, about 9x9 cm.  This time we don’t know where the stairway leads since it disappears behind the ram’s head.  It’s also hard to tell whether the girl is scared or excited, running from something or running to something, but at least the goat has a benevolent expression.  What does this have to do with “Recollection?”  I don’t know, but that’s surrealism for you.

        Another goat appears in “Mr. Jacob and the Airship.”  There are actually three airships in the sky behind this magnificently horned ram, unless perhaps they’re different views of the same one.  I would certainly like to know the story behind this one, although in some ways part of the fun is not knowing.  What sort of story would you make up to explain this as an illustration?

        I have to restrain myself from sharing lots more of these, so I’ll finish with just one more: “Departure.”  This shows a dog being lifted off a moon-like surface, but instead of the bunch of balloons one might expect, the dog is being lifted by an enormous, dense bunch of flowers.  There’s a lot I like about this, from the concept of the bouyancy of flowers to the incredible details of all those petals.  This is another huge one by wood engraving standards: 32x29

cm.  I hope the dog is going somewhere that feels like home - perhaps to find the little girl and join her in the castle on the whale’s back.

[Pictures: Dawn, wood engraving by Kayoko Moriyama (Image from The Society of Wood Engravers);

Recollection, wood engraving by Moriyama;

Mr. Jacob and the Airship, wood engraving by Moriyama, (Images from KayokoMoriyama.com);

Departure, wood engraving by Moriyama, 2025 (Image from College Women’s Association of Japan).]

Finding Moses

         Today I have for you a chiaroscuro woodcut by John Baptist Jackson (UK 1701-1780) a British artist who worked in Venice for a while, where he was obviously very interested in the artists of the Venetian school.  In 1745, his last year in Venice, he produced a series of 19 major wood block prints reproducing paintings on Biblical subjects by Venetian masters.  This one is entitled “The Finding of Moses” by Paolo Veronese (1528-1588), and while normally I’m less interested in block printing as a mere method of reproduction, there are some interesting things about this one.

        First of all, chiaroscuro is all about the drama of light and shadow.  You can brush up on the basics of chiaroscuro block prints here.  At their most basic, chiaroscuro prints include just two colors, medium and dark, in addition to the white paper.  Jackson, however, made some innovations to the technique.  Apparently he developed new inks to facilitate a wider range of colors, and in this piece I think I see four colors of ink, plus the paper.  It makes the whole thing look a bit like a sepia-toned photograph, but obviously this can’t have been Jackson’s goal, since this was still quite a long time before the invention of photography.

        The other thing that’s interesting is that I can’t find the exact painting on which this piece was based.  Veronese seems to have painted the subject of Pharaoh’s daughter finding Moses multiple times, but although I can find 7 different examples on-line, not one of them matches this print.  This raises the question of how closely Jackson followed his model, or whether he chose to make changes in the composition to suit the new medium and color scheme.  So although Moses is being found in this print, I haven’t found the Moses it was based on!  (Here is Wikipedia’s link to 7 versions, in case you’re curious.)

        Things I particularly like about this piece include the pyramids in the background, how the background is only light colors, the beautiful trees, and how the Pharaoh’s daughter is anachronistically dressed like a Venetian princess of about 1580.  (It always tickles me when artists paint historical subjects in contemporary dress.)  And of course the carving is very impressive, as is the chiaroscuro shading.  This is not a style or technique I’m ever likely to do myself, but it’s always cool to see how a master artist tackles it.

[Picture: The Finding of Moses, wood block print by John Baptist Jackson based on a painting by Veronese, 1745 (Image from Princeton University Library).]

Where Connections Lead

         This post is to help spread the word about another Kickstarter campaign with which I’m connected.  Where Connections Lead is “a global speculative fiction anthology that celebrates diverse voices and imaginative storytelling,” and I’m very pleased that one of my stories is included.  To find out all about it, please do go check out the campaign on Kickstarter to find out more about the project and the authors whose work is included.  The editors made it an explicit goal to include a wide diversity of voices from around the globe and from different backgrounds, which makes this project especially interesting and important.

        My short story, “The Horn,” is unusually open-ended.  It was one of those stories that I absolutely loved imagining and writing, but then wasn’t really sure whether it would ever find a home.  But when I heard about the call for Where Connections Lead, it seemed like a perfect fit for these characters because the story is all about how art teacher Ms Lydia Bell and the Horn connect… and the open-ended hope that their connection might lead to a relationship that could widen the world for both.  Not only was the story accepted, but the cover artist Roxane Llanque also did an illustration for the story.  Since I am someone who generally does her own illustrations, and who is far from being famous enough to get much fan art, it’s especially exciting for me to see how someone else responds to my writing and pictures what I’ve imagined.  It’s fun to see how this isn’t exactly the way I pictured the Horn, but how it brings him to life in a new way.  And it's super fun that an art print of this illustration is one of the add-ons in the Kickstarter campaign.

        As for my involvement in the project, that is in itself an illustration of Where Connections Lead.  I met co-editor Sylvia Woodham several years ago through Yale Women Writers Group, an on-line group that builds connections between women writers of all sorts, all of whom have a connection with Yale University.  (In my case, Yale College.)  I then invited Sylvia to participate in Strong Women-Strange Worlds, a series of on-line readings that builds connections between authors and readers.  Sylvia read with Strong Women-Strange Worlds in November 2022, and you can watch a recording of that event on YouTube if you’re curious.  And it was through that connection that I was invited to submit to this anthology project, just proving that you can never tell where connections will lead.

I’m hoping that my connection with you will lead you to check out the Kickstarter campaign going on now, and see whether this sounds like something you’d like to support, thus building connections to more authors and readers around the world.

[Pictures: Where Connections Lead, cover artwork by Roxane Llanque;

The Horn, illustration by Llanque.]