Hometown Block Prints

         This year I’ve turned to local points of interest and done two block prints depicting scenes from the town where I’ve now lived for the past 27 years.  The first is the cupolas from three of our important public buildings: the library, Town Hall, and the high school.  All three buildings began life with a Colonial Revival style, although all three have also acquired modern additions.  These cupolas, however,  are part of the original, beloved landmarks, and all three of these institutions have used their cupolas in their own logos.

        I just finished a second local landmark piece, and this one depicts Echo Bridge over the Charles River.  This majestic bridge was built to carry an aqueduct over the river, and it also carries a pedestrian trail along the top.  When it was built in 1876 its main arch was the second longest masonry arch in the USA and was apparently quite famous.  It was something of a tourist attraction because there’s a small platform at the base of the arch where one can stand to listen to the impressive echo that gives it its name.

        My depiction of Echo Bridge uses some artistic license.  For one thing, the bridge actually has seven arches and I wanted to give some suggestion of those arches even though they are not actually very visible in the summer.  On the other hand, I don’t go walking by the bridge very often in the winter when the leaves are down and the structure of the bridge shows better, so I’ve fudged my view a bit to place my scene in summer but still show multiple arches.  I’ve also used artistic license to clear away some shrubbery in the foreground in order to give a better view.  In fact it would be hard to get exactly this view these days, with lots of small trees and bushes sprouting up on the outcroppings where you’d have to be standing.  In any case, though, even if Echo Bridge is no longer a famous tourist attraction, it’s still a wonderful local spot and I wanted to capture its beauty for anyone who holds affection for it.

        On the down side, I didn’t capture quite the sense of lofty scale that’s part of what makes Echo Bridge so special, but on the other hand, I’m especially pleased with how all the trees turned out.  I experimented with quite a few different patterns and textures, and I studied the trees in blocks by a number of other artists I’ve shared here before (especially Charles William Taylor) to try to pick up some tips.  On the whole I think it was pretty successful.  I especially like the branches above the bridge at the top left!

        I recently heard of a call for art depicting the Charles River, and I was excited to submit this piece because it sounds like a very cool show that’s being put together and I’d love to be part of it.  But then I read the fine print and discovered that there’s a submission fee, so I will not be submitting after all.  I’ll take a little tangent right now to explain why I refuse on principle to submit to anything - art or writing - that requires a submission fee.

        1. Yes, I’m stingy and I dislike throwing money away.  I know that lots of people would consider this part of their publicity budget, but I don’t want to spend money that probably gets me nothing in return.  Short story and poetry submission fees are usually fairly low, in the $5 range, and one could certainly submit to a few of those things without breaking the bank, but art shows are much more expensive, regularly charging $20-50 per piece just to submit.  That adds up fast.

        2. It’s basically gambling, and I could just as well spend that money on a lottery ticket (another thing I don’t do, because I don’t want to spend money that probably gets me nothing in return.)  The call for artists or authors may be framed as if it’s not random like a lottery ticket, but in fact having my work selected is really pretty much a matter of chance.  Sure, there’s an element of basic intrinsic quality which, if you don’t have it you’ll definitely not be accepted, but it largely comes down to a matter of the judges’ taste.  I could be the most towering genius the world has yet known, but if the juror happens to have a taste only for pop art, or color photography, or edgy political art, or abstract mark-making, then my work is not going to be selected.  Moreover, most of these contests receive a lot more excellent work than they can accept, so even if the judge does really like my piece, they’ll be balancing it against everything else they want to accept.  Was there another black and white block print?  Was there another view of Echo Bridge?  All factors over which I have absolutely no control, so yes, I could just as well be buying a lottery ticket.

        3. To me, charging for submission is the mark of a scam.  Yes, I know that it’s pretty standard in the art world, and in the literary world there are a number of very prestigious, highly regarded, supposedly legitimate journals that charge submission fees.  (And contests pretty much always charge.)  But I don’t care how prestigious you are; if you fleece desperate artists and authors with no intention or expectation of giving anything in return, that’s a scam.

        4. Yes, I do understand that most arts and literary organizations aren’t rolling in cash, either.  If they’re going to pay editors or guest jurors, the money needs to come from somewhere, and maybe it sounds perfectly logical to charge the artists who want to be chosen.  But everything in me rebels at the injustice of taking money from the poorer, less successful, most desperate artists who will never benefit, in order to subsidize the successful, famous ones who are the darlings of the art world.  See point 3 above.  This is why we need public arts funding, private patrons, grants, and fund-raisers, and indeed an entire overhaul of the arts economy.  (Add the tsunami of AI “art” to the mix, however, and it’s pretty clear that things are going to get a lot worse for artists and authors before they get better.)

        Well, as I said, that rant was just a tangent, and the real focus of this post was meant to be sharing my two new prints!  Do you have any favorite local landmarks you’ve commemorated in art (whether that’s photography, watercolor, poetry, or whatever your medium may be)?

[Pictures: Points of Needham (Library, Town Hall, High School), rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2026 (Image from NydamPrints.com);

Echo Bridge, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2026 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]

Fun with Spears

         Ethel Spears (USA, 1903-1974) was primarily known for her whimsical paintings and murals usually featuring lots of people doing lots of activities.  But she also made quite a few linoleum block prints, and these too tend to have a gently humorous charm.  I’ve picked three to share today that have a little bit of range of subject matter and style.  First up is one that’s a little more in keeping with the paintings that made her famous: an urban or suburban scene of people busy about their daily lives, in this case walking along the sidewalk in front of a tall house.  The people don’t have a lot of detail, but they’ve got personality, and the house has all kinds of little textural details.  One thing I find interesting is that while the borders across the top and bottom have a tidy geometric pattern, the borders on the sides seem to be almost as rough and random as the texture carving out the background.  I can’t help wondering whether this is one of those instances where Spears made an error in what she intended to carve, and had to make a virtue of necessity and change her design.  If so, it goes to show what I always tell students, which is that it can still end up fine even if it’s not

what you originally intended, and most people won’t even notice that it was a “mistake.”  But there is another definite mistake in this piece: the address is backwards above the front door!  I especially love the tree and the tall front steps.

        These delightful fish are a lot of fun, with their bold outlines, geometric textures, and funky forms.  I love the surprise of the starbursts in the background, and the curly organic form in front of the lower fish.  Given that the title indicates Spears saw these fish in the Field Museum, Chicago’s natural history museum, I wonder whether she was making sketches during a visit, or whether this was based on memory.

        And finally we have an interior scene, once again characterized by bold outlines, strong forms, and lots of rough patterns.  The small credenza has lots of knick-knacks, as well as a vase of flowers and a bowl of fruit, and it looks like there are venetian blinds in the background.  It feels like a cozy and comfortable home.  Wouldn’t it be fun if it were inside the house in the first piece?  But it was made 14 years later, so there’s no reason to think there’s any connection at all.  I especially like the big insect on the top shelf.  Is it a praying mantis?

        Spears is one of those artists whose style is so different from mine, much rougher and more stylized, and I admire how natural it obviously is for her.  What she and I seem to have in common is a delight in the world around us.  I enjoy these very much.

[Pictures: 654 N. Michigan, linocut by Ethel Spears, 1947;

Field Museum Fish, linocut by Spears, 1959;

Interior, linocut by Spears, 1961 (all images from Foltz Fine Art).]

Sekka's Mythical Beings

         Kamisaka Sekka (Japan, 1866-1942) was an artist who spanned the movement of Japanese art toward modernism.  The Japanese government sent him to Glasgow to study western arts, where he was much influenced by the Art Nouveau movement.  His work is more simplified and stylized than the styles of Japanese art that came before.  His masterpiece was the three volumes of Momoyogusa, which is sometimes translated A World of Things, and sometimes Flowers of a Hundred Worlds.  The latter is more poetic, but I’m guessing the former is more accurate a translation, and is certainly a more accurate description.  The 60 pieces depict some flowers, but also other plants and animals, views of nature and of daily life, objects, people, scenes from literature, and even a few mythical characters.  These last are what I have for you today.

        We have to start with the dragon, of course!  This is very dramatic, showing only the head and one taloned foot looming out of inky grey cloud.  The eyes and claws are gilded for extra punch, but it’s hardly necessary.

        Next up is another stormy character: Raijin, god of thunder.  He’s following his standard iconography by beating on his drums, while his hair flies wildly.  Again, you can see that this is relatively simple with large areas of flat color compared with traditional Japanese woodblock prints - but it’s still quite complicated compared with anything that uses a single block and a single color of ink.  (I mentioned Raijin’s companion thunder beast the raiju here.)

        And finally we have the hakuhō, translated as “white phoenix,” although I can’t find any information about what, if anything, this bird’s mythical powers might be.  Lots of fantastic birds seem to be translated as “phoenixes” without necessarily having anything in common with the phoenix proper, so I’d love to find out more about this one.  At the very least it’s certainly very beautiful.  I like the faint pattern of the wood grain in the background, and the delicate fluff of the bird’s tail feathers.

        If you want to see one of Sekka’s non-fantasy pieces, I featured his “Seven Herbs of Early Spring” in a previous post (or follow the link to the Cleveland Museum of Art in the credits to see lots of pieces.)

[Pictures: Ryū (Dragon), color woodcut by Kamisaka Sekka, 1909-10;

Raijin (God of Thunder), color woodcut by Kamisaka Sekka, 1909-10;

Hakuho (White Phoenix), color woodcut by Kamisaka Sekka, 1909-10 (All images from Cleveland Museum of Art).]

C.W. Taylor’s Textures

         I did a previous post on wood engravings by Charles William Taylor (U.K., 1878-1960) nine years ago, but today I saw a few more, and this time what really struck me about them was how everything in the image is built out of patterns of texture.  As I’m currently working on a landscape piece myself, I’m really studying how Taylor uses detailed patterns of strokes to make his layers of multiple trees, his water, his ground…

        First, however, is a small view of Colchester, and the light in this piece blows me away!  There's a contrast between dark shadows and light so brilliant that it washes out St. Nicholas’s spire in a sparkling shower.  And it’s all done with the texture of lines and crosshatching.  Look at the variety of patterns across the sky to see how Taylor has made a gradient of light, plus another pattern on the church, and contrasted with the yet different pattern on the building beside it.  (By the way, this lovely church was apparently demolished in 1955.)

        Somewhat more typical of Taylor’s work are the two pastoral landscapes, but this view of deer in Epping Forest also has amazing light.  Look how the deep shadow of the huge tree is an absence of grass and leaf litter, and how the light glints across the water and illuminates the outlines of the deer.  Look at all the different patterns of strokes - vertical, horizontal, diagonal, short, long, curved, straight - and how they define plants and differentiate the areas.  Instead of outlines around areas, these textures create the entire scene.

        The final piece looks like dusk is falling, and again Taylor’s mastery of light and shadow gives us everything we need to interpret the scene.  In my previous post I praised the sense of spaciousness Taylor brought to his landscapes, but with these examples the light brings a sense of intimacy, and a feeling that we have been offered a portal into a singular, enchanted time and place where the light happened to fall in just this extraordinary way, which Taylor has managed to capture in black ink on white paper.

[Pictures: Colchester, wood engraving by Charles William Taylor, (Image from Art UK);

March in Essex or Epping Forest (title given differently in two places), wood engraving by Taylor, 1920s-30s (Image from National Gallery of Art);

Wickford, wood engraving by Taylor, (Image from Art UK).]

Summer Heat

         Here are a few block prints that capture today’s summer heat.  These are linoleum block prints painted with watercolor, by Leslie Evans, and the acrostics within them are by Steven Schnur.  All the yellows and warm greens really give a sense of sunny days and sultry evenings, and from the comfort of my relatively cool desk, I can appreciate the lush garden outside.  This year  I’m not growing zucchini and I don’t even like eggplant, but I do like this print of veggies growing in the sun-warmed soil.  (My own garden is not nearly so inspiring - this morning I discovered that almost all of my tomatoes and blueberries have disappeared before they had even begun to ripen.  That’s just not fair!)

        On the other hand, my shasta daisies do look just like this second piece, complete with the occasional dragonfly, and they are indeed delightfully cheerful, just like little sunshines.

        This evening I’ll be sitting outdoors and it will be very hot indeed, but the glow and flash will be provided not by fireflies or (hopefully) lightning, but by the annual fireworks display.

        I’ve featured a few more lino prints by Leslie Evans before, in posts Young Youth Year and Melting Snow.

        If you have a garden or some pots, how are they growing?  And what summer traditions do you treasure?

[Pictures: Zenith, hand-colored linoleum block print by Leslie Evans from SPRING: An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Schnur, 1999;

Daisy and Night, hand-colored linoleum block prints by Evans from SUMMER: An Alphabet Acrostic by Schnur, 2001.]

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).]

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).]

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).]

Y is for Yossele

         (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, my brand-sparkly-new collection of short stories, poems, and art inspired by fairy tales, myths, and folklore.  All through the month I’m sharing excerpts of art, stories, and poetry, as well as some reflections on the power of the traditional stories that inspired me.)

        Yossele is the nickname, according to some accounts, of the Prague golem.  If you want to learn all about him, you simply need to go read my whole post about him: The Prague Golem.  Okay, now to consider what this legend contributed to my new collection.  For this one the artwork is the primary piece.  (If you’re interested in the process you can see the sketch and half-carved block in that previous blog post.)  This shows the golem taking the pleasant night-time air and quietly reading, while waiting to be called upon again.

        There are striking similarities between the lore of golems and shabtis (which you can find at S) and I might throw out a wild speculation that the Jewish folklore was influenced by the Egyptian mythology, although the timing may be wrong and I haven’t looked into whether actual scholars have any opinions on the matter.  In any case, though, they are both humanoid figures constructed out of clay (always, in the case of golems and usually but not always in the case of shabtis), for the purpose of serving humans.  But the interesting piece they share that I want to focus on today is that they’re both activated by the magic of written words, which constrain them to exact and literal obedience.

        The magical power of writing is a belief that many cultures have shared, particularly before eras of widespread literacy when people began to take the power for granted.  It’s a theme appropriate for Words of the Month, and one I’ve come back to myself on several occasions.  It was  particularly important in Sleeping Legends Lie, the second book in my high fantasy Otherworld series, in which our protagonists attempt to escape from enslavement by using writing to convince their captors that they’re sorcerers.  And then there’s the golem in Kate and Sam and the Cheesemonster, the third book in my series for elementary children.  In that story the exact wording of the golem’s instructions is central to the plot.  The idea that words can literally bring things to life is one that writers love, but these stories also remind us that words can wield incredible control over people.  My shabti pushes back against the power of the written spells that control him, while my golem has, perhaps, realized that by reading he can claim the power of words for himself.

        By the way, when I say that words constrain these beings to literal obedience and literally bring them to life, I mean that… literally.  The etymology of the word literal is from Latin “of letters or writing.”  It entered English in the late 14th century to distinguish an interpretation of a text (usually Scriptures) according to the words as written, as opposed to metaphorical or allegorical interpretations.  The word literal-minded, which is perfect for a golem, appeared in the late 18th century.

        For a little more about golems, including some books that feature them, (and more for Words of the Month) check out my post on Artificial Life.

        Y is also for Baba Yaga, another story that’s explored via artwork in Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns.  You can see more about that piece here at Baba Yaga Village.

        Do you enjoy being transported by words?  Here’s one last reminder that I and 5 other authors will be attempting to enchant you with excerpts from our work on May 1.  Find out the details, plus links to pre-register for this free on-line event here.  I’ll be reading a little something (teaser: actually two little somethings!) from Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns.

        The moral of the golem is that the words we hold in our heads can determine whether we turn toward truth (emét) or death (mét).

        Also, be careful what you say because words really do have power.

        Would you want to have a servant that, on the one hand, supposedly follows your every command, but on the other hand is liable to go rogue through taking its instructions too literally to their unintended extremes?  Oh wait, you already do: it’s called a computer.

        

[Picture: Staronová (Yossele), rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2023 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]