Good

         Another short blog post, but this one is to direct you to a little more to read.  This month’s issue of Friends Journal includes my short story (or possibly more of a prose poem) entitled “Good.”  I think it’s timely for Thanksgiving week because it’s all about reminding us how incredibly good and beautiful Creation actually is.  We should absolutely be full of thanksgiving for the bounty of harvest and resources that help us thrive, but also more broadly for the whole miraculous interconnected web that makes everything thrive.  This should also prompt us to understand that when that web of creation is torn, when parts of it can’t thrive, we all fail.  So please read my story, feel gratitude for the blessings of this world, and renew your commitment to manifest all that love in caring for it all: the natural world, our fellow humans, our interconnectedness, our responsibility toward the future…  It is all worth giving thanks for, and it’s all worth working for.

        The illustration in the middle of the story is one of my block prints made a while before I wrote the piece, but obviously exploring the same ideas.  You can read this previous blog post about the making of that piece: Behold, It Is Good.

        Yes, there’s been a bit of a theme over the last few blog posts.  That’s something of a coincidence, since some of these things have been in the works for months and months, but I’m also leaning into it since I myself certainly feel the need of it right now.  I suspect that a lot of others need it, too.  If you’ll be getting together with family this week I know there may be some fraught moments.  I know some of you may have interactions that are painful, depressing, offensive, enraging, and exhausting.  But please just try to remember that Love is always there to support us if we can just tap into it.  And it is Good.

[Pictures: Friends Journal, November 2024;

Behold, It Is Good, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2021 (originals sold out).]

Bittersweetness, Light, and Love

        Back in January I launched a Kickstarter campaign for Bittersweetness & Light, a collection of stories, poems, and art.  One common theme of the work is that it’s all various flavors and genres of speculative fiction (sci fi and fantasy), and the other common theme is that it’s all about looking for the best in others and the world, affirming joy, and finding reasons for hope.  As I’ve been putting this book together over the course of the year, the clouds of anxiety have continued to gather, so that it has indeed been bittersweet to be bringing out a book about hope just when I and so many people I know have been feeling such a desperate need for it.  And as I’ve been shipping out the finished books to my Kickstarter backers over the past week, my heart has been torn in two.  Half of me feels like it’s petty and pathetic to be talking about a mere book in such desperate times, but the other half of me truly believes that sharing our stories of hope and love is actually one of the most important things we can be doing right now.  Only if we can build up our connections with each other, only if  we can reach out to each other with our stories, and only if we can encourage each other to keep looking for the good all around and never stop loving… only then can we survive.

        Already I’ve heard from a few people that receiving the book this week was exactly what they needed, and that gives me hope that this whole project is indeed worthwhile.  Whenever I feel helpless and it all seems pointless, I keep reminding myself of the words of Joey Hartmann-Dow: Art changes people, and people change the world.

        If you backed my Kickstarter and haven’t yet received your book, I'm taking the last batch to the post office tomorrow, so you should look for it in your mailbox soon!  If you didn’t get in on the Kickstarter campaign but are curious about the book, you still have to wait a little while.  The Kickstarter backers are all getting advance copies, and the official release is not until January 6, 2025.  However, I am hoping to figure out how to make it available for pre-order by the end of this month or December, so I’ll be sure to let the world know if I can make that happen.  In the meanwhile, don't forget to look for instances of love and kindness, and whenever you find joy and hope, be sure to share it!

        To help with this desperate need for us to send each other love, I’ve made a new set of notecards based on a bunch of my block prints that focus on messages of love.  I send emails all the time, and texting certainly has its value, but a handwritten card is still something special.  What do you think?  What’s your favorite way to reach out to friends and family?

[Bittersweetness & Light, by AEGNydam, info at NydamPrints.com;

Love cards, designs by AEGNydam, at NydamPrints.com.]

Keep Loving

         I can’t say much right now, so I’ll just share one of my recent rubber block prints.  The idea came from vintage seed packets and, of course, the fact that we need to plant these seeds more than ever right now.  Spread them far and wide, tend them carefully when you can, but sow them wildly into the wilderness when that’s all you can manage.  They just might be an invasive species - in the best possible way.  Whatever happens, don’t ever let anyone stop you from feeling love and sharing it.  Love your neighbors; love the Earth; love honesty, integrity, and truth; love those who are most vulnerable.  Love is probably the only thing that can save us.

[Picture: Seeds of Love, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2024 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]

A Desperate Little Exhortation About (Bitter)Sweetness and Light

         Hooray!  My Kickstarter campaign is fully funded, and my book Bittersweetness & Light will really be happening!  I’m so glad and grateful that this project will be shared with the world… And yet… let me share a couple of recent conversations that gave me pause…

        During a reading I was explaining that my book was meant to give hope and joy, and that my stories are always guaranteed to offer some sort of “happy ending.”  A lovely and well-meaning person responded eagerly, “Oh yes!  Sometimes you just need a fluffy beach-read!  And other times you need something with more depth to really engage in, so it’s so important to have both kinds of books.”  In another conversation a couple of days later I suggested that movies and other media that are nothing but unrelieved doom and gloom, misery and blame, don’t necessarily motivate people to work for good.  The immediate reply was a disparaging, “Right, Ignorance is bliss.”  The automatic assumption I keep facing is that anything that isn’t dark and painful must be shallow and mindless; that happiness is “fluffy;” and that only violence and misery are “real” or worthy of serious engagement.

        Well, I’m serious about joy.  I absolutely believe that joy and hope are real, important, engaging, and worthy of deep consideration.  I have no problem with “fluffy beach-reads” and the occasional escapism (and indeed, some of the stories to be included in my book are certainly “fluffier” than others!)  But it drives me crazy and breaks my heart that people can’t even imagine that a “happy ending” could have substance.  It doesn’t even cross their minds that anyone serious, intelligent, well-informed, and rational could share causes for joy or reasons to hope; if you’re not wallowing in misery, you must be burying your head in the sand.

        Let’s break down these assumptions.  For some time now the whole world (and certainly myself) have been suffering from unhealthy levels of stress, trauma, and anxiety.  Obviously this is partly because there are so many real, serious things going on that of course cause stress — but it’s also because we are so immersed in the bad news that we never get a chance to focus on the good things.  It’s because there are forces in this world that actually benefit by keeping us too depressed and cynical to stand up against injustice.  It’s because our species is actually hard-wired to be hyper alert to every possible danger and focus more on the things that might go wrong.  It’s because even when we try to fight injustice, we just end up beating ourselves up and burning ourselves out.  In the face of all these reasons, it is actually an act of fierce defiance to acknowledge joy.  To stand up and claim that Goodness does exist, that Love is powerful, that Joy is possible, and that we all need to work harder at finding that joy, and sharing it with each other.

        I keep trying to spread that message, but honestly, these conversations coming one after another gave me a bit of a crisis of confidence.  Clearly whatever I’m saying doesn’t seem to communicate the point I’m trying to make: that one can look at a world that is broken, full of suffering, and feeling ever more precarious, and yet still see that there also exists infinite beauty, capacity for love, and possibility of redemption – and more than that, we need to take a long, hard, serious look at all that beauty, love, and possibility if we’re going to have any chance of surviving these threats and making things better.  Maybe I’m not the right person to be the messenger, if apparently I don’t seem to be very effective at expressing the message.  Still, I have to keep trying – because I do still have hope - and Bittersweetness & Light is part of how I’m still trying, as one small person with just a small voice.

        So, I’m serious about joy, but that absolutely does not mean that I’m now turning “joy,” too, into something drearily dutiful.  This collection of stories, poems, and art is serious in the sense that I hope it will engage you, make you think, and reach somewhere deep in your heart – but that doesn’t mean it has to be serious in the sense of somber, dark, and depressing.  I hope this book will be make you happy and lift your spirits!  I hope it will be entertaining to read, fun to look at, and delightful to your mind, heart, and soul.

        I suggest you try a little exercise: pay attention as you go through your day and start noticing how often you encounter those assumptions that only the bad, mad, sad stuff is worthy of serious consideration – or tend to make such assumptions yourself!  Start pushing back against them, and keep reminding others (and yourself) that joy is real and that we need to share it with each other.  Let me know how it goes, because I need all the help I can get!  And if you do want to join in the Kickstarter campaign for Bittersweetness & Light, you have just one more day!  The campaign ends just before the stroke of midnight on February 13, so procrastinate no longer, but come share my joy in this!

Quaker Conduits

         I have a short story published this month in Friends Journal, which is a Quaker magazine.  As a Quaker, all of my stories come from that perspective and are influenced to some degree by my beliefs, experiences, and background.  This much is true of every author.  In addition, however, I’m often a little more deliberate in working Quaker messages into the stories I write.  Non-violence is a recurring theme for me, plus looking for the Light in others, and trying to practice integrity, as well as elements of Quakerism such as “following leadings” and “discernment.”  Despite all this, however, I never mention Quakerism in my fiction, or write about explicitly Quaker characters.  There are a few reasons for this.  The Otherworld Series, for example, is a high fantasy set in a secondary world in which there’s no such thing as Quakerism, or any other real Earth religion.  The Bad Advice of Grandma Hasenfuss, on the other hand, is set in the real world, and our hero even goes to church on Sunday.  Why church and not meeting for worship?  I chose something that would seem relatively unremarkable, and hopefully relateable or at least understandable.  Danny is an “ordinary” kid, and Quakerism is not particularly mainstream.  To stick it into the story would only be distracting.

        But this short story “The Conduits” is different.  It features a girl in Quaker meeting for worship, experiencing a Quaker sort of magic.  The speculative element that makes this story some sort of fantasy is simply the What If of imagining that a metaphor I think about all the time were actually, physically, tangibly true.  Although Quakers are not the only people in the world who use this sort of metaphor or experience this sort of divine connection among people, this time I wrote my story in a Quaker setting and with a specifically Quaker perspective because the way I imagine it is most definitely coming from my own personal experience.

        Like many stories, there’s certainly a bit of wish-fulfillment - I wish I could have Maggie’s superpower, even if just for a taste.  (And while that’s a bit of fantasy for me, I’ve been surprised by the number of people who have told me they have had an experience that is at least a glimpse of something like this.)  There are definitely autobiographical elements in the story - like counting things when I was bored in meeting for worship as a child.  There are elements based on real people - like the welcoming warmth of some, and the coldness of others.  (But I do have to point out in my mother’s defense that Maggie’s well-meaning but oblivious mother is not based on mine!)

        Writing is often an act of vulnerability, because we give the world glimpses into our bare souls.  Feeling for the element of Divine love and light in the world is another tender endeavor, all too easily misunderstood, mocked, or dismissed.  To share it in writing can be vulnerable indeed.  Beyond that, progressives are often particularly shy of sharing our faith, because we’re trying so hard not to be the sort of people who are not tender with their dogmas, who shove their religion into other people’s faces or, worse yet, use it as a weapon.  But despite the Quaker setting, this story is not actually about religion, or at least not about any particular religion; it’s about love.  If you’re curious, you can read the story at Friends Journal (and enjoy the lovely illustrations by Cristina Conti.  It’s cool to have someone else illustrate my work for a change!)  You can also hear me reading the story aloud, and you can hear me talk very briefly about the story on the inaugural episode of the Friends Journal podcast “Quakers Today.”

[Picture: digital illustration by AEGN, 2022.]

International Peace Day

         Today is the International Day of Peace, and although (as with most such declared days), we’d be much better off with more than one a year, I do want to address how we think about peace.  In art it’s relatively straightforward: there are many works of art, small and large, famous and personal, that celebrate, explore, promote, or cry out for peace.  There are pieces that reproach us about the costs of war (Picasso’s “Guernica,” Nevinson’s “Paths of Glory,” Kollwitz’s “The Parents”) and pieces that call us into the benefits of love (Rockwell’s “Golden Rule,” Hicks’s “Peacable Kingdom” )  There are pieces that explore how we can reach across divides, and how we can better understand each other’s needs, hopes, and dreams.  There are pieces that simply invite us to sink down into beauty.  As for myself, many of my block prints include at least some element of the work of promoting peace: All In this Together, Out of Darkness, Keep Dancing, Tree of Life, Blessing, Behold, it is Good, The Enormous Turnip, Dancing with Animals, The Family Who Lived in a Shoe, Holy Mountain, Hope…  I enjoy portraying people of all sorts and creatures of all varieties living, working, and playing together in cooperation and love.  A picture can open new worlds in the mind, and can stick in the heart in a way that makes art an important tool for peace.

        What about stories about peace?  Well, in some ways that’s a lot harder because after all, plot equals conflict.  No conflict, no plot; no plot, no story.  So a description of a peaceful Utopia is unlikely to be much of a story, and since stories are so much more powerful to humans than philosophical musings (It’s All About Stories), no matter how much we may intellectually support peace, what we really get excited about are those gripping stories where our heroes keep slashing or shooting or punching until they kill all the bad guys.  And when those are the stories we cherish, it can be very hard to imagine peace.  So, what’s a story writer to do?

        Well, first of all, this is one of those places where speculative fiction could have a special edge in saving the world (How Juvenile Fantasy Will Save the Earth).  Certainly retelling true stories of peace is incredibly important, and it’s vital to be reminded that true stories of peace are indeed more common and more achievable than the news would have us believe.  In addition to these stories, speculative fiction can also help us imagine new and even more powerful visions of peace.  But how, without plots full of conflict?

        1. First of all, peace is not necessarily about the absence of conflict, but rather about how conflicts are dealt with.  Where there are people (and all sorts of organisms) encountering each other, there are inevitably going to be conflicts.  But do we tell stories in which the only way to “solve” conflicts is to slash, shoot, and punch until all the bad guys are dead?  Or can we tell each other different stories, in which creativity, respect, understanding, and love are brought to bear?  Stories in which, instead of winners and losers, there are comings-together?  Many of my books explore these themes, especially the Otherworld series, The Bad Advice of Grandma Hasenfuss, and the Kate and Sam Adventures.

        2. Might it be possible to imagine how our stories could change if we were able to avoid some of the needless conflicts we bring on each other?  What stories could still be told?  Struggles to solve other problems, such as diseases or natural disasters?  Quests to learn more about the depths of space, oceans, or history?  What else can you think of?  Now let go of your preconceptions, open your mind, ask “What if…?” and tell me now: What else can you think of?

[Pictures: Hope, rubber block print by AEGN, 2015;

Blessing, rubber block print by AEGN, 2021;

Keep Dancing, rubber block print by AEGN, 2022.]

Juneteenth

         I wasn’t able to find any block prints directly related to Juneteenth, so I’m celebrating instead with a couple of African-American printmakers whose work celebrates their identity and experience.  I’ve started with a piece by Elizabeth Catlett (USA/Mexico, 1915-2012).  I’ve featured her before, so you can revisit a couple of pieces here and here.  She’s done a lot of very moving work exploring the experiences of Black Americans during slavery and through the twentieth century.  Today, however, I’ve picked a piece that is more celebratory.  The silhouetted people don’t have obviously happy expressions, but their bright colors and the title of the piece “Magic People,” make me feel that it’s about resilience and survival and working together to stand up together.

        Next a beautiful piece by Deborah Grayson, an artist I know very little about.  In her statement she talks about exploring silence and what it reveals and protects about the inner lives of Black women.  I love the expression on this face, with the closed eyes looking inward and the hint of a smile at what she sees there.  As a white woman I can’t speak for what the experience of Juneteenth means for Black people in this country, but it seems to me that while it is a celebration of the end of slavery, it’s also an acknowledgement of the disgraceful injustices that were supposed to have ended much sooner (or, indeed, should never have happened at all), and a reminder to keep envisioning a future that addresses and eliminates the injustices with which we’re still plagued.  Today’s first piece represents the celebration, and this second piece represents that dreaming of the future.

        The third piece is by Paul Peter Piech (USA/Wales, 1920-1996) who is not African-American, but whose piece seemed appropriate to represent that third element of Juneteenth: the acknowledgement of the wrongs that still need to be addressed.  (I’ve featured Piech before, so you can see more of his work here.)

        My own awareness of Juneteenth is relatively recent (as in, I'd never heard of it as a child).  Do you have any stories or memories that make this holiday especially meaningful to you?

[Pictures: Magic People, linoleum cut by Elizabeth Catlett, 2002 (Image from Cleveland Museum of Art);

Innervisions 2 (Unfurling), relief block print by Deborah Grayson (Image from GraysonStudios.com);

Liberty, linoleum block print by Peter Paul Piech, 1971 (Image from V&A).]

Give Thanks

         Tomorrow I will be celebrating Thanksgiving, and it is a good time to share a brand-new project that I think has a lot to do with gratitude.  Despite the complicated history of the origins of Thanksgiving, despite the fact that the national myth of The First Thanksgiving has been badly skewed, despite the fact that some people may feel they have little to be thankful for in the arrival of new people on these shores 400 years ago, I persist in my belief that it is a good thing to celebrate gratitude.  I am grateful for my home, which is on such beautiful land of the Pawtucket people — and of me and my family.  I am grateful for that family, and I am grateful for the people I don’t know or love so well, who still are part of the fabric of my community, and who love their own homes and their own families.  I’m grateful for the people who produce and sell me food and art supplies and books and all the other things - both necessary and merely delightful - that make my life so good.  I’m grateful for the people who buy my art and books (or even just say nice things about them!) so that I feel supported and encouraged in doing this thing I love.

        One of those people is a friend who last week saw the sketch of a block I’ve just started working on.  She said that I should make the design into a coloring page, and we could share it with anyone who needs a little reminder, in these times of fear and hatred and anxiety, that each day we can make the choice to try to live in a whole different mode altogether.  So that’s what I’ve done!

        Feel free to download this coloring page HERE and color it as beautiful or eye-catching or cheerful or soothing as you desire!  Print lots of copies and bring them with you to your Thanksgiving get-together, and let everyone in the family color as you wait for the turkey to come out of the oven!  Send the colored pages to family and friends who couldn’t be with you, or drop them in your neighbors’ mailboxes; share this link with everyone you know… and then do it: try to fill your day with love in every way you can, whether that’s forgiving someone who hurts your feelings, or realizing that you might be hurting someone else, or being kind to the people in the shops (especially if you actually go out shopping during the crazy post-Thanksgiving shopping rush when people tend to get a little harried and cranky!)  Reach out to someone you’ve lost touch with, send a note of gratitude to someone who is important in your life, smile at everyone you pass when you’re out for a walk - and don’t be swayed by anyone who’s trying to fill your day with hatred.  Just try your very best to love them anyway, even while firmly not allowing them to do their hateful things.  Even you being just one person doing this will absolutely make a difference, and if we all do it, it will a change the world.

        Okay, that turned into a bit more of a sermon than I was intending.  In fact, all I really wanted to say was that I am full of gratitude.  My art and my writing tend to be the parts of my gratitude that overflow and spill out so much that I want to share them with everyone, which is what I wanted to do with this coloring page today.  If you want to share it, too, that would make me very happy.  And if you want to share your colored masterpieces back with me and with the wider world, I would love to post a gallery of them all!  So snap a picture of coloring in progress and/or the finished piece, and email it to me.  (Rather than post my email here, I’ll direct you to go to my web site nydamprints.com, go to the bottom right-hand corner, and smash that “Contact Me” link.)

          As for the block for which this was just the design, I started carving a bit at a demo last weekend, but I am exercising incredible restraint in saving it to carve during upcoming shows.  In due course, when the block is actually finished and printed, I will be sure to let you know.  Also, if you want some additional coloring pages of my designs, you can find a collection here: Stay-at-Home Activities 1.

        Happy Thanksgiving and love to all!

[Pictures: Fill This Day coloring page, by AEGN, 2021;

All in this Together, rubber block print by AEGN.]

Art Changes People

        It’s been a while since I quoted someone at you to prove again how important art, fantasy, and imagination are, but as we watch the swirling storm clouds over a world that cries out for change, it seems a good time.  First, here is writer Rebecca Solnit acknowledging the sometimes deep and invisible roots of change:

        After a rain mushrooms appear on the surface of the earth as if from nowhere. Many do so from a sometimes vast underground fungus that remains invisible and largely unknown. What we call mushrooms mycologists call the fruiting body of the larger, less visible fungus. Uprisings and revolutions are often considered to be spontaneous, but less visible long-term organizing and groundwork — or underground work — often laid the foundation. Changes in ideas and values also result from work done by writers, scholars, public intellectuals, social activists, and participants in social media. It seems insignificant or peripheral until very different outcomes emerge from transformed assumptions about who and what matters, who should be heard and believed, who has rights.

        Ideas at first considered outrageous or ridiculous or extreme gradually become what people think they’ve always believed. How the transformation happened is rarely remembered, in part because it’s compromising: it recalls the mainstream when the mainstream was, say, rabidly homophobic or racist in a way it no longer is; and it recalls that power comes from the shadows and the margins, that our hope is in the dark around the edges, not the limelight of center stage. Our hope and often our power.

        Of course I want to call attention to Solnit’s mention of the work done by writers, and add to that the work of artists.  One part of our job is to bring forth the mushrooms of imagination, taking tiny mycelial threads of ideas and popping them up into the white stalks and frilled and spotted caps that others may notice, and consider, and perhaps remember.  Our mushrooms loose their spores into the air, millions of miniscule specks, like particles of smoke, of which we never know when, whether, or where one may land in a hospitable environment and lead in time to the mushrooming forth of further imagination somewhere else.

        I try to avoid politics in this blog largely because, while I do not wish to be an ostrich with my head in the sand, nevertheless we all need places we can go to have respite from the stress.  Still, I have always maintained that art and writing do not exist merely as the negative space of not-stress.  They have an important job to do as the positive space of helping us imagine a better world, so that we can move toward it.  At times like the present I find it easy to feel like my small-time art and writing are not much, certainly not enough, and perhaps really a waste of time altogether.  And that’s when it’s important to remember the simple but powerful words of artist Joey Hartmann-Dow:

        Art changes people, and people change the world.

[Pictures: Wood block prints from The herbal, or, Generall historie of plantes by John Gerarde, enlarged and amended by Thomas Johnson, 1636 (Images from Internet Archive).]

Quotations from Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit, 2016 (as quoted by Maria Popova in “Brain Pickings”), and Joey Hartmann-Dow as quoted in Friends Journal, June/July 2018.

E is for Eenie

        (My theme for this year’s A-Z Blog Challenge is traditional English language nursery rhymes, and their block printed illustrations.)

Eenie meenie miny moe,

Catch a tiger by the toe.

If he hollers, let him go.

Eeenie meenie miny moe.

        Kindness to animals is always a virtue, even if the tiger needn’t have hollered quite so loudly over such a very small injury.

        I’d like to talk about how I imagine the story: of catching a tiger - by the toe, no less!, feeling sorry for its distress, and letting it go again.  But unfortunately I think this is the place, instead, to acknowledge the problematic content of some nursery rhymes.

        This was the counting-out rhyme of choice for my fellow children and me when I was growing up.  We used it all the time, occasionally with the addition of My mother says to pick the very best one and you are IT, if we wanted to draw it out.  And yes, it was a tiger, with never the slightest suggestion of anything else, and no racist overtones, undertones, or tones of any sort.  I did not even realize that other versions existed until I was an adult, when I discovered that in fact there are seemingly infinite variations in all the parts: the nonsense words, the thing that’s caught, and the response to it.  So no, there’s really nothing problematic about this precise nursery rhyme, but there is a particular other version that is more than merely problematic.  (To be explicit, for those who do not know, some people know the second line as “Catch a nigger by the toe.”  This is a word I would never want to use, but as a linguist it is important to be honest and accurate about the words people do use, not the words I think they should use.)

        Given the age of variants of the rhyme (one theory is that it originates in Old Saxon divination) and geographical distribution, it seems likely that the racist version is not original, but developed in the US south.  Unfortunately, that racist version was popularized by Rudyard Kipling, among others, so it gained far too much of the market share in the early twentieth century.  That’s left a bad taste in some people’s mouths, and I can absolutely sympathize that those who grew up with the offensive version should get an instant negative gut reaction at hearing the opening words.  However, I don’t believe that the non-racist versions should be condemned because of guilt by association…  Also, if we’re opening the can of worms that is offensive content in nursery rhymes, we should be at least as concerned about sexism; abuse of spouses, children, and animals; and prejudice against various peoples throughout the British Isles and Europe, as well.

        I haven’t included in my A-Z challenge any of the rhymes that I consider dreadful, but of course different people are offended by different things to different degrees.  One could fairly ask why we keep these rhymes at all, if they’re so problematic.  So, what do you think?  Do you see any value in passing on culture from the past, and what do you think should be done with the parts of cultural history we wish we didn’t inherit?  Where do you draw the line, and
how do you think we should handle these problems?  And what’s your favorite counting-out rhyme?

        A final note for impressionable children:  Do your best to be kind to everyone.  Sometimes even a tiny pinch on the toe can be painful.

[Picture: Eenie Meenie Miny Moe, rubber block print by AEGN, 2004 (Image from my book).]

Folktales for Dark Times

        One thing that it seems everyone in the world has in common these days - and yes, I like to look for things we have in common, no matter how divided we are — is that we’re all scared, and stressed out, and worried about the future.  The irony, of course, is that it’s the things some of us do to try to avert crisis that are causing what others of us see as crisis, to which they react with actions that cause even deeper crisis to those with the first perspective, and so on…  So how can we break out of this vicious fear cycle?  Well, it isn’t easy and it will take a lot of work from a lot of different directions, but one thing that can help is sharing stories.  Why?  Because stories give us hope, inspire us to be brave and persistent, spark our problem-solving creativity, and provide a little stress-reducing humor.  Not just any stories will do, though.  Stories have power, and stories about how We will crush Them are definitely not helpful.  So here, to the rescue, is folktale expert and storyteller Csenge Virág Zalka with a Storytelling Global Crisis starter kit.

        Go straight to Zalka’s blog The Multicolored Diary and check out her list of folktales for dark times: Don’t Stop Believing.  Read some for your own mental and emotional health, and then share some, because sharing multiplies the benefit.  (Actually, not all of the links go to readable stories.  Some just link to citations of books that may not be readily available.  Still, a number of them can be read on-line.)  Recurring themes are the need to keep doing the small tasks for as long as it takes without giving up, and the need to work together to solve problems and overcome threats.  So hang in there, and don’t stop telling the stories that inspire you to hope and action.

[Picture: Story Time, rubber block print by AEGN, 2003 (sold out).]

A Few More Thoughts on Getting It Wrong

        The situation in which Cancel Culture is the most appropriate and potentially positive is in boycotting work that is actively promoting a hurtful agenda.  It’s least appropriate and most counterproductive when it’s in reaction to someone with good intentions.  Here are a few more thoughts on how we should handle our own mistakes made through ignorance or thoughtlessness but not malice.

        Unless you write nothing but autobiography, you will be writing about people who are other than yourself — and even in autobiography you’ll have to mention a few other characters in the background.  But of course some people are more different than others, and as you write you will inevitably get things wrong.  When this happens, apologize, and keep going, because everything you write is a rough draft for everything you’ll write after.  (I cannot take credit for this brilliant observation, but alas I cannot give credit, either, because I can’t remember who said it!)  In that spirit, therefore, I am apologizing for making the character Tij in Ruin of Ancient Powers in the stereotype of the Blind Seer.

        I start with the question of whether stereotypical Blind Seers are better or worse than having blind characters represented as being useless, or not represented at all.  I would think that various people might have different responses to that question, depending on their own experiences and pet peeves.  It’s worth pointing out that not all [x] will share the same attitudes or the same judgement of any given portrayal of [x].  It’s also worth pointing out that a fair answer to my question would be, “How about a fourth option?”

        In my defense, I think Tij bucks the Blind Seer stereotype (thus edging at least slightly toward that fourth option) in an important way: she isn’t passive.  She doesn’t give the protagonist wise advice and then stay home while he goes off to have adventures.  Sight or no sight, wisdom or no wisdom, she is a full participant in all the action.  That said, she is blind and Angduv says of her “She listens so intently she hears even what I leave unsaid.  She sees to the truth so clearly, so openly, that she has no need to see anything else.”  So, for perpetuating the stereotype of the Blind Seer and potentially irritating and frustrating blind people who are sick of blind characters being portrayed this way, I absolutely apologize.

[Picture: Amos, wood block print by Irving Amen (Image from IrvingAmen.com).]

Keep Dreaming

        The work of Paul Peter Piech seems appropriate as a follow-up to Martin Luther King Jr Day.  Piech (USA/Wales, 1920 - 1996) was a graphic artist who worked in advertising until the late 1960s, after which he produced hundreds of lino and wood block printed posters that combined images with lettering to make social and political statements.  Many of these were in the form of quotations, and Piech made a number of posters featuring words of MLK Jr.  I don’t know how many altogether, but from 1977 through 1979 he made a series of 100 posters commemorating King’s assassination.  From the most famous words of all, “I have a dream,” to longer, less well-known passages, Piech celebrates King’s message.

        Perhaps not surprisingly, Piech’s imagery is dominated by faces and hands.  These are the most emotionally expressive parts of humans, so they’re bound to be a powerful part of any images designed to elicit an emotional response.  Even so, though, Piech concentrates on them even more than the Mexican political printmakers, for example.  He also combines faces and hands in unusual ways, such as placing faces on the palms of hands.  Perhaps the faces represent people and the hands represent actions.

        The text is the other characteristic element of Piech’s work.  I have to confess that I don’t like the large paragraphs of text so much.  Piech’s lettering is difficult to read, and the solid blocks of words are not as graphically powerful as the images.  I do like it when the words and images are more integrated, as in the third piece shown here.  Piech does create an interesting style, though, and it gives his work a distinctive look.  It also makes the message more explicit than images alone can ever communicate.

        Each year we try to remember Martin Luther King Jr’s message and what he stood for, and to recommit ourselves to moving toward justice.  Perhaps the most important piece of all is to hold onto the dream and never allow ourselves to be lulled into the belief that we’ve come as far as we can.  Piech took seriously the artist’s role in helping us to remember to keep working and keep dreaming.

[Pictures: I Have a Dream, relief block print by Paul Peter Piech, 1995 (Image from National Poetry Library);

Love, relief block print by Piech, second half of 20th century (Image from Regional Print Centre);

Economic Injustice, linocut by Piech, 1977 (Image from WorthPoint);

The Softminded Man, linocut by Piech, 1977 (Image from WorthPoint);

Retaliation, linocut by Piech, 1977 (Image from WorthPoint).]

A Few Thoughts on Cancel Culture

        Over the years I have featured the work of many “problematic” creators, from Nazi-sympathizing artists to sexist poets, but the rising tide now is “cancel culture,” which is the idea of boycotting the work and shunning the people whose personal behavior or opinions are considered unacceptable.  This can be a powerful way to stand up to injustice.  It can give those who feel victimized a sense of reclaiming power and agency.  It can bring larger social awareness to issues of prejudice or oppression, and to the specific crimes of specific celebrities.  It can cut down financial support for a hateful agenda.  It can  educate society about things that people find hurtful.  This is all Good.  But there are situations in which cancel culture is itself problematic.

        My first question is what we do about the work of those who are long gone?  Our cancelling of their work can’t teach them a lesson.  And what if the work itself is untainted by the sins of the creator?  With literature one might argue that it’s impossible for the writer’s prejudices not to contaminate the work (although I’m not convinced that this is in all cases true), but with visual art or, say, classical music, it’s much easier to feel that a work is beautiful, moving, and sublime, without there being any evidence of the artist or composer’s less admirable traits.  Is the art less beautiful if the artist has sins?  Does it lose its power when you remember that a mere flawed human created it?

        Then to focus in on these flawed humans (dead or living) and their less admirable traits… How bad do they have to be to be cancelled?  My belief is that there has only ever been one perfect Creator, and of course many people don’t believe even that.  So if no one is perfect, how bad is too bad?  Things may be clear at the extremes - that living artists directly profiting from their atrocities should be boycotted, while artists who simply failed to get along with their step-parents can probably still be accepted - but human behavior is a continuum, not a step function.  Do we cancel every single creator in Western Culture before, say, 1960?  Was there ever a single one who was not sexist and/or racist and/or anti-semitic and/or Islamophobic and/or homophobic and/or…?  Where do we draw the line?  And who gets to draw the line?

        And now let’s think about change.  Sometimes people change.  Sometimes people do actually learn and grow.  Cancel culture, with its instant firestorm outrage, leaves no room for this.  People are cancelled for past errors, whether or not they have since changed, and they are cancelled for present errors large and small, without the possibility of repentance.  Cancel culture’s purpose is punishment rather than rehabilitation, and scandal rather than education.  Something that can have so many positive possibilities in fighting society’s ills is all too often more of a sledge hammer than a scalpel.

        This can end up counterproductive, leaving people afraid to engage in dialogue or address thorny issues, damping creativity, and leading to a toxic environment where cancel culture is used as a justification to attack and demean anyone with whom there is disagreement.  Of course this is not how hearts and attitudes are changed.  Speaking for myself, I am quite certain that I have have not managed to get through the past almost-fifty years of speaking and writing without making statements that are offensive or hurtful to someone.  I promise you that whatever it was, unkindness and bigotry were not my intention, but I am ignorant about many things, and sometimes thoughtless, and often flippant.  If I do something wrong I would like my error to be explained to me so that I can try to avoid making the same mistake again.  I know education takes time and energy, and people get tired of having to educate ignorant idiots all the time.  I know that I don’t actually enjoy being criticized, and might be a little more prickly about criticism than I should.  But the question is simply: Which is more important to you, the grand rush of self-righteous outrage, or actually fixing the problem?
        Are there any ways to engage with problematic artists and art without either condoning the bad aspects or cancelling everything?  There’s a lot to think about, and this is just a short treatment of it.  I don’t claim to have covered all the issues or addressed all the concerns, or to be the first to have considered these questions.  If anyone has further thoughts, counterarguments, or reactions, I am open to hearing them.  I have merely laid out some of my own thoughts and reactions to this aspect of our current social environment, because it touches me closely.  Although I am small-time enough to fly under the radar of any huge backlash (I’ve never had a frontlash to begin with!) it is my job to lay myself open in many ways, and I do worry about making an inadvertent misstep, hurting someone’s feelings, and being branded as an irredeemably horrible human being.  (And a little more on making mistakes here.)

[Picture: Desbrozando (Clearing) wood block print by Mariano Paredes, undated (Image from  Docs Populi).]

Another Harpist On My Theme

        A month ago children’s author and professor of literature Katherine Rundell released a book entitled Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise.  I have not yet got my hands on it, but from the excerpts that have appeared in articles, she is most certainly singing my song - and singing it beautifully, too.

        Defy those who would tell you to be serious, those who would limit joy in the name of propriety. Cut shame off at the knees... Plunge yourself soul-forward into a children’s book: see if you do not find in them an unexpected alchemy; if they will not un-dig in you something half hidden and half forgotten…

        To miss out on something so rich, strange, varied and enticing in adulthood, just out of embarrassment or perhaps because it hasn’t occurred to you, seems such a waste. There is such joy to be had.

        So one point is simply the joy of children’s literature.  (The Good Stuff, of course!  As with anything, there's plenty of rubbish, as well.)  Some of this may be the joy that adult lit snobs sneeringly refer to as “escapism,” about which read my previous post.  A lot of it is the “wise” cynicism that believes misery is realistic while happiness is unrealistic, about which read this previous post.  There’s the puritanical suspicion that anything good and virtuous must be unpleasant, while anything you’re enjoying is probably some sort of sin.  But all of these attitudes are, quite simply, false.  As Rundell declaims, defy them!

        But there’s more than simply the potential for joy, as if that weren’t already enough.  Rundell reminds us that children’s books encourage us to long for impossible and perhaps-not-impossible things.  These things are, of course, the things worldly wise adults have all-too-often already given up on: justice, adventure, hope…

        I think there is a risk, in adulthood, through the compromises we make and the busyness of our lives, that we cease to cherish the imagination in the way we should. Because the imagination is absolutely essential for seeing the world truly.

        Writing books for children requires all the love, beauty, imagination, and hope that serious adult writers tend to leave out in the name of “sophisticated ambiguity” and “gritty realism.”  Which is precisely why adults should be reading them.

[Picture: Dingbat from Chap-Books of the Eighteenth Century, by John Ashton, 1882 (Image from Internet Archive).]

Rundell’s quotations from The Guardian, 20 April 2019.

Life-Saving Relief Print

        Because this blog is devoted to the A-Z Challenge from Mid-March through the first post of May, no other topics get covered in that time, but now that the April A-Z is over it’s time to switch gears and go back and report on a few interesting things that are now about a month out of date.  I’ll start with a report on a school printmaking visit I did that introduced me to an amazing person and episode of history I had not been aware of.

        Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese vice consul in Lithuania in 1939-40, and went against his orders to give visas to as many people as he could who were fleeing the Nazi regime.  The details of all that he did are fascinating and inspiring - I encourage you to read the Wikipedia article.  Sugihara did everything he could to give out as many visas as possible, working up to 20 hours a day preparing papers, throwing stamped, signed papers from train windows into crowds of desperate refugees, and finally leaving the consulate seal itself behind when he was recalled to Japan, so that someone else could keep stamping forged papers.  He realized that his consular stamp literally had the power of life for people who would be killed if they couldn’t get away from the Nazis.  I like to talk big about how great printmaking is, and the power of art, but this particular relief printing block - the consulate seal - while of course never intended to be art, had a power much more immediate and stark than any mere picture.  Estimates are that Sugihara saved the lives of between 2,200 and 6,000 people (hard to pin down in part because multiple people in a family could travel under a single visa).

        So how does all this turn into a school art visit?  Well, an artist I know, Tova Speter, who specializes in community art projects, is doing an art installation at a local school, inspired by the story of Sugihara and his consulate seal.  Her idea was to have the eighth grade students make stamps representing some quality that they admired in Sugihara, then the stamps would be used to make a sort of mosaic, which is to be installed as a piece of art in the school.  (There is also to be an assembly at which the entire school community can stamp papers with the student designs.)  While Tova is something of a jack-of-all-trades, she recruited me to help with the printmaking part of the project, and we met with all the eighth grade students to help them carve their printing blocks.

        The down side was that the school was not able to give us enough time to do the stamp-making project optimally.  In order to be as efficient as possible, Tova had the kids start planning their designs ahead of time, and I cut 2 inch circles of rubber for everyone ahead of time, but even so, it was much more rushed than I would have liked, and a number of students weren’t able to finish.  Plus there were several students home sick on the day of carving.  I ended up finishing the carving for all of them.  (Normally as a teacher I make it a point never to do students’ artwork for them, even when they ask me to, but these were special circumstances: the students were never going to have another opportunity to complete their own carving, and it was deemed important that they nevertheless see their designs realized and made part of the final community project and installation.)  But the up side, of course, was some cool work by the kids!

        I’m not sure what stage the whole project has reached by this point, although I very much look forward to seeing pictures when the installation is complete.  In the meantime, though, I have been fascinated to think about the creativity with which Sugihara used his relief print to save so many people’s lives.

        Addendum: here's a link to Tova's description of the completed project.

[Pictures: Visa issued by consul Sugihara, 1940 (Image from Wikimedia Commons);

Assorted stamps designed by eighth grade students at Maimonides School, 2019.]

W is for Wyvern

        My theme for this year’s April A-Z Blog Challenge is fantastical creatures, celebrating my upcoming book, On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination.  Please check out my Kickstarter Campaign to find out more.

        As mentioned before, I’m not trying to make an encyclopedia in which I merely accurately report the research on these myths and legends.  I’m trying to start with the research, but then imagine the next step.  If these creatures really existed, how might they actually behave?  How might people interact with them?

“The wyvern dwells primarily in Europe, and is frequently employed in heraldry, where it poses fiercely on coats of arms.  There it is thought to bring fortune in battle to those who bear its symbol, but what of the wyvern's own fortune?  Though wyverns have rampaged over the countryside and posed on coats of arms for centuries, it is not inevitable that they do so always and forever.  I myself in my travels once encountered on a rocky tor a restless wyvern who had left his shield to seek his own fortune, hoping to discover what new possibilities the world might hold for him.

        This wyvern teaches us the power of envisioning new possibilities, for it is easy to assume that the way things are is the only possible way for them to be, and difficult to break free of the assumption that the world cannot be changed or improved.  Let us be reminded by the adventuresome wyvern that we need not remain enslaved to things as they are, for the way things are is not inevitable, and we can, with imagination, seek for freedom in new ways of seeing and living in the world.”

        If you could pick any creature for your own personal symbol, what would you pick and why?

        The alphabet of mythical creatures doesn’t stop there.  You have to click the link to read 

the entire post about Mythical Creatures of the Letter W.

[Picture: Freedom, rubber block print by AEGN, 2017.]