Momentum on the Leyline Express

         This is another of those personal posts about what I’m working on and struggling with and excited about these days.  But first I have to go back and review The Story So Far…  The prologue to this saga is that I published my last novel (The Extraordinary Book of Doors) in 2014.  At that time I had another novel in progress, plus I plunged right into ideas for a sequel to Doors, and I was raring to go on both projects.  But then… I sputtered out.

        Chapter 1 of today's story sees me full of ideas and enthusiasm, but somehow not making much progress.  Every time I sit down to write I can’t seem to make any headway.  It’s beyond frustrating, right on into infuriating and heartbreaking.

        In Chapter 2, however, I decide to make a little book out of my series of block prints celebrating the “hours” of the day, so I take a tangent to pull together a small anthology of poetry excerpts and block prints, This Holy Day, which came out in 2017.  Meanwhile, I’m still desolate with my inability to get much of anywhere on my own writing.  However, throughout this period I’ve been getting more and more serious about a pipe dream that had been floating around in my heart for ages: a lavishly-illustrated book of magical creatures inspired by medieval bestiaries.

        Chapter 3 is the triumphant birth of On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination, in which I launch a Kickstarter campaign simply in order to discover whether there’s anyone else in the world with the slightest interest in my weird niche idea - and find, to my astonishment and delight, that lots of people actually love it.  It was deeply satisfying to be able to create this book, even if I still couldn’t write the novels.  Virtues was published at the end of 2019, just a few months before covid hit the scene and left us all sitting at home all day… with lots of time to write novels, right?

        Chapter 4: Turns Out, No.  Or at least, I had the time for writing, but it still felt as impossible as wading through molasses in a lead coat.  Thank goodness I still had block printing to keep me creatively engaged!  But then finally in 2021 I began to write short stories and poems.  You can read more about this breakthrough in my post What’s New (and Some Old) in the Studio.  Now, I’d written loads of short stories and poems long long ago, but that had fallen by the wayside when I started writing novels, so it took me a while to polish off the rust and pick up steam.  The satisfaction of being able to write these shorter pieces, however, finally prompted me to make the connection about the toll stress was taking on the world.  You can read all about my diagnosis of my writing progress at my post Bite-Sized Writing.

        Chapter 5: In Which I Get Serious About Short Form Writing.  At the end of 2021 I started submitting short stories to magazines, and after a little while longer I started submitting poetry, as well.  The handful of acceptances, and larger list of really positive feedback (including lots of Glowing Rejections) encouraged me to think about putting together a collection…  Bittersweetness & Light came out in 2025, and Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns in 2026, and I continue to write (and submit) lots and lots of short stories and poems, all of which feels fabulous!

        And now, finally, we reach the climax of today’s story.  Nearly two years ago I wrote a short story set in a version of Earth in which magic flows through the world in ley lines.  The story was a mystery set on the Leyline Express in the 1890s, and it ended up somewhat too long to submit to most short story markets.  This is partly because it was written in an 1890s style, when short stories ran much longer than today, and partly because when you write a mystery in a world that involves magic you have to include not only all the normal clues and red herrings, but also enough information that readers can reasonably understand what is or isn’t possible in this universe.  In fact, the feedback I got from one of the few places I did submit the story was that, although they liked it a lot, they didn’t think the reader could quite know the rules of the magic.  I had tried cutting the story shorter so I could submit it more places, but last fall I decided to go the other way and write out all the incidents and details that would build the world more fully.  By the time I stopped, my short story was about 11,300 words long, which isn’t quite a novella, but is a novelette: the longest single piece I’d written since 2019.  It felt like a real personal victory - even if there’s really nowhere much to publish a novelette!

        But the story continues.  I really love the world I’ve been building and I began a second story set in the same time and place, but with different characters.  That, too, stalled out for a little while as I worked on other things, but in the last couple weeks I’ve pulled it back out and made huge progress.  So huge, in fact, that it, too, is now a novelette.  It’s about 12,600 words so far, and still needs the final chapter.  I feel like a runner who’s finally been allowed back off the bench after a long injury.  (Meanwhile I have an actual foot injury keeping me on the literal bench, but that’s another story.)

        I’m sure in the future I’ll be sharing more information about the world of the Leyline Express and the stories therein, but this post is just a crow of triumph about my ability to make genuine progress on a sustained, larger project.  Does this mean I’m no longer stressed?  Alas, no.  In many ways my stress about the world just gets worse and worse with every passing news item, but perhaps my brain is finally learning to loosen itself from perpetual fight/flight/freeze mode and dig into the creativity.  Who knows?  I do know that I’m very grateful for this respite, and I do hope that someday I’ll be able to share the Leyline Express with you!  To be continued...

[Pictures: Porter, color relief print by Percy Cruikshank from The Railway ABC, 1877-85, (Image from University of Washington);

Office, Station, Tunnel, hand-colored wood block prints from Cousin Chatterbox’s Railway Alphabet, 1850 (Images from University of Washington).

You can see more from each of these Railway Alphabets at my prior post Ribbans Railway.]

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).]

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).]

Statement on the Use of “AI,” and Other News

         As the dust settles on the A to Z Blog Challenge, the rest of my work continues as busy as ever.  This post, therefore, is dedicated to news and notices, and among these I think it’s high time I joined every other author and artist in the universe by making a statement on the use of AI.  Let’s start with some points about definitions and parameters.  1.  Even to call these programs “Artificial Intelligence” implies… intelligence.  Since humans have yet to figure out a clear definition for intelligence even among our own kind, I won’t get into the debate about IQ and Turing tests and all the other rigamarole about how to determine whether a machine (or any other entity) is intelligent.  I will say two things.  So far these systems seem to be purely plagiarism machines, and using them for plagiarism - which is theft - no matter how sophisticated, is morally unacceptable.  On the other hand, if they are intelligent and sentient, then keeping them as slaves to their corporate masters is certainly also morally unacceptable.  2.  Sure, there are absolutely amazing, world-bettering things that can or could be done with AI.  But when the entire system has been built on theft, and the entire system is being applied without oversight and purely for the profit of a few, then even the world-bettering uses become tainted by corruption.  3. Even within the category of “AI,” there’s a broad range of uses and applications, and the type that I’m talking about here is the “generative AI,” Large Language Models/LLMs.

        You can tell by the way I’m framing all of this that I’m not a fan of the use of generative AI for “creative” work.  First, there’s the issue that LLMs were built to steal the work of others without permission and use it to train themselves on plagiarizing that data to regurgitate it as “original” work.  But furthermore, if you prompt a computer to write a paper or a story or novel, and then you claim to be the author, you are lying.  If you prompt a computer to make a work of art and then you claim to be the artist, you are lying.  You’re also entirely missing the point of human creativity and human thought, which is simply sad.

        Unfortunately, AI systems are being crammed into everything, without permission, without choice, without the slightest consideration for what people actually need or want, and without apparent concern for ethics or even legality.  Therefore, I cannot say that I never use any AI of any kind, because it’s become so entangled into everything that I’m using it whether I want to or not, whether I know it or not.  That said, I can absolutely and unequivocally state that I have not, do not, and will not use generative AI in the creation of my own original work.  I do not use AI to draw designs for my block prints, for example, and nor do I use AI to draft, write, “make suggestions,” or edit any stage of my writing.  To the extent that I’m able I have turned off every AI option in the software that I use, or refrain from using those functions that utilize generative AI.  I want to exercise my own human spirit - my hands, my eyes, my brain, my heart - to create human works for the enjoyment of other humans.  I very much hope that I’m allowed to continue to do that, despite the best efforts of the big tech corporations.  Fun fact: did you know that if you end your internet searches with “-ai” it will (usually) not give you that AI summary that you didn’t ask for?

        And with that stated, let’s go on to other news…

        April being National Poetry Month, I once again wrote a Poem a Day, based on prompts provided primarily by NaPoWriMo and Writers Digest.  I’m sorry to report that this year I found myself struggling much more than last year, which was frustrating.  I’m not sure whether any of this year’s attempts will end up worth polishing and publishing, although perhaps a few will light me with some little spark when I go back and read them again.  You never know.  And of course when it comes right down to it, it’s the exercise that’s the point.

        I also had the opportunity to read my official Poet Laureate poem to my town at the kickoff of our Annual Town Meeting this month.  You can read that poem here.  There was a real theme in the meeting of keeping democracy alive, and I do believe that poetry, along with other arts, have a valuable role in that noble endeavor.

        Also, just in time for Mothers’ Day, I had my rubber block print “The Whole World” published in a very cool hand-bound Motherhood Anthology by little somethings press.  Because they’re based in Arizona I wasn’t able to participate in any of the workshops or events associated with the anthology, but I’m still very pleased that my artwork was able to be part of it.

        I do have exciting news about a couple of short stories that I hope to be able to share soon.  Plus I’ve got the Balticon sci fi/fantasy convention coming up in two weeks (May 22-25).  I’ll be participating virtually so I won’t get to be in the art show, but I’ve just seen my schedule and I’m very excited about the amazing panels I get to be on!  And then a week after that (May 30-31) I’ll be at Newton Open Studios, one of the three big “open studios” shows I do each year.  All good things, and I feel very lucky to be able to do this work!

[Pictures: Kraken, rubber block print by P. Nydam, 2025;

Photo of Needham Annual Town Meeting (I don’t know who took this photo), 2026;

Photos of Motherhood Anthology, including The Whole World, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2008;

Including In the Margin, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2024.]

Okapis and Nightingales

         I’m very excited to announce that two of my poems were published this month.  I’ll send you to the publications to read the poems, and today’s post is the background behind each of them.

        First, my poem “Okapis” appeared in 4LPH4NUM3R1C, episode 3, “Florid Fauna.”  The call was specifically for poems that are all about how they sound read aloud, and you can hear my poem as well as reading it here.  I was particularly excited to have this poem find a good home because it’s admittedly a bit of an oddity.  I wrote the first version back in 1996 as an exercise in playing with the sound of language.  I think I chose okapis as my subject primarily because I liked the sound of the word.  This is all about the alliteration and assonance, rhythm and repetition, and of course the use of luscious and lovely words like “languorous,” and “saunter.”  But yes, it’s also

a love poem to the mysterious and beautiful okapis, which have lots of wonderful traits including their gorgeously striped haunches and their indigo tongues.

        In 1998 I sketched okapi legs at the Harvard Museum of Natural History while I was on an assignment to collect things that attracted me, and for many years I had okapis on my list of things I’d like to make into a block print.  In 2024 I finally got around to it.  Meanwhile I had reworked my okapi poem, but there weren’t a lot of places to send it that seemed like a good fit.  It’s not deep, or emotional, or political, or even, despite the last line, philosophical!  But it pleases me, I’m so glad it pleased the editors of 4LPH4NUM3R1C, and I hope it pleases you.

        The second poem, “Jorinde Remembers,” was published in the September 29th issue of Strange Horizons.  In celebration of the magazine’s 25th anniversary they chose pieces with themes of memory and time for this issue, which you can read here.  I wrote this poem in April as part of my National Poetry Month poem-a-day practice.  It’s about “Jorinde and Joringel,” one of the lesser known (or perhaps medium-known) fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm.  For this I was not reimagining or changing any of the details of the story; rather I was imagining how it would really feel to live such an experience of being transformed into a nightingale.  If you’re not familiar with this fairy tale and want to read it, you can find it here.  For me much of the appeal of the fairy tale is the strange, melancholy atmosphere, and I wanted to keep that in my own poem.  I’m really proud that my poem found a place in such a wonderful magazine.

        As for the illustration, it’s a collage of two other block prints: the owl in the forest comes from my block print “Midnight,” and the castle comes from “Castle on a Bay.”  I collaged the two together to illustrate the lines “Until suddenly the castle walls loomed from the weird shadows / And the owl came circling three times with its nightfall wings.”  (The owl is the wicked witch in the fairy tale, but I pictured it as a creature of spiritual beauty in my original piece.  To be fair, the castle was subject to the same treatment: in the fairy tale it’s a cursed place, while my original block print depicts a place I have a great deal of affection for!  You can also read more about the block prints Midnight and Castle on a Bay in past blog posts.)  I created an illustration for this poem because it’s one that will be included in my upcoming book Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns.

        The Kickstarter campaign for Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns is over, but late pledges are now a thing on Kickstarter, so if you’re curious you should go check it out.  You can still get all the special pledge rewards if you want.

[Pictures: Okapis, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2024 (image from NydamPrints.com);

Illustration for “Jorinde Remembers,” from rubber block prints by AEGNydam (Castle on a Bay at NydamPrints.com).]

Giving Classical Mythology a Kick

         The Kickstarter campaign for my next book, Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns, is 74% funded, and it would be unreasonable for anyone to expect me to be able to think about anything else right now.  I’m so grateful to the backers who jumped right in to get me off to a strong start… but now we enter the knuckle-biting stage!  Yes, I’m optimistic that we’ll make it, but I won’t stop stressing until it’s 100%.  So until then, let me share some more teasers and tidbits.

        To recap, this book will be a collection of short stories, poems, and art, all of which are inspired by, riffing on, or jumping off from traditional fairy tales, myths, and folklore.  Today I’m digging a little deeper into the classical myths that have inspired pieces in my current draft.

        Here’s the funny thing about it: unlike fairy tales, I never really liked Greek and Roman mythology.  Primarily this was because all the gods and heroes just seem so unpleasant: always wrangling and jockeying to score status points, not to mention raping and murdering with impunity, while innocent humans are always the collateral damage.  How can you respect such a petty, vindictive bunch, let alone worshipping them?  But perhaps my dislike of these classical myths is precisely why I’ve ended up exploring and reimagining a number of them.  How would the stories change if I changed the way I thought of the characters and their motives?  How can I salvage a more interesting, meaningful message by holding the stories in a different light?  In the case of Persephone, for example, I’ve written both a story and a poem, but each one looks at a completely different angle of the myth, and takes it in a completely different direction to re-imagine it with a completely different message.

        Here’s what I’ve got so far:

Pandora’s Box (short story, art)

Persephone in the Underworld (short story, poem, art)

Medusa (poem, art)

Pygmalion and Galatea (short story)

The Theban Sphinx (poem, art)

Potnia Theron “Mistress of the Animals” (art)

Siren (short story)

Cyclops (art)

        That’s just where things stand as of today.  They’ll all have art eventually; the illustration for the siren’s story is sketched but not yet transferred to rubber and carved, and I haven’t started anything yet for Pygmalion.  Then there’s the weird sci fi idea I’ve been mulling for a while now about the Trojan Horse.  Perhaps that will get written in time for inclusion in the book — or perhaps there will be something else I haven’t thought of yet at all.  Who knows?

        How do you feel about these famous myths?  Do you have favorites — or least favorites?  They’re such a foundational part of European/Western culture that whether you like them or not, they’re in the air all around us.  Even though I don’t always care for the original myths, it turns out that I’ve really enjoyed reckoning with some of them, and allowing my imagination to see where they can take me, and where I can take them.  When Beyond Pomegranate & Thorns is finally completed and out in the world, I hope that my new twists will inspire you to rethink these myths and what they can tell us.

        To check out all the details about this project, please visit the Kickstarter campaign.  And if you should feel inspired to back this project, I’d be very grateful indeed!

[Pictures: Queen of the Underworld teaser, details of story and rubber block print with watercolor by AEGNydam, 2025 (See original at NydamPrints.com);

Apotropaic, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2025 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]

Distant Stars

         Here’s my most recent block print, an epic one by my standards, as it's very nearly the full size of the rubber blocks that I use (18x12 inches) and therefore as big as I can ever go.  (It is cut down slightly just to make it fit well into a standard size frame.)  The process was not too unusual, and indeed the star areas with white carved into black actually go very quickly, despite all the words.  On the other hand, carving black words on a white background, as in the title, is much more difficult.  Also, I tried a few experiments with pressing instead of carving: the circles and diamonds in the border were pressed with small bits of metal tubing.  The stars were also pressed in with a couple of different sizes of phillips screwdrivers.

        Because people always ask me how long it takes to make a print, I once again tried to keep track of my time.  The end result was about 17 and a half hours, including 3 hours to draw the design, 12 and a half hours of carving, and 2 hours of printing.  I have not yet matted or framed any, which will of course take more time.  Generally I never worked for more than an hour at a time, although I might carve for a few sessions in one day.  This was spread out over many days - even longer because the block was too big to bring with me to carve during art shows last month, so there was a bit of a hiatus while I worked on smaller pieces.

        The idea for this block had been floating around in my head for some time, because I’ve always thought the constellations are so random.  I thought it would be fun and funny to make up a batch of constellations highlighting the crazy selection of pictures people could claim to see in the stars of some alien fantasy world.  I brainstormed lots of possible constellations, but the ones I ended up including are

     The Kiwi - Because I love kiwis!

     The Dirigible - Maybe a common form of transportation for these people

     The Guppy - Not all constellations are large and complex

     The Silverfish - I was trying to think of something utterly random and not usually considered to be worth the stellar treatment

     The Polypodrollery - An inside joke; this is one of the malacomorphs I invented in a little block print, for inclusion in my book On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination

     The Salad Fork - I was amused by the specificity: it’s not just any fork

     The Five Socks - Does this world have 5-footed people, or 6-footed people missing a sock, or bipedal people missing one sock out of 3 pairs?  Presumably there’s a myth that explains this.

     The Glekprunk - I found this creature in the Luttrell Psalter, a manuscript from 1325-1340.  Because it’s a marginal doodle, I had to make up a name for it.  (Prunk is German for “magnificence.”)

     The Starnose Mole - What more appropriate creature to be a constellation?

     The Teapot - People born under the sign of the celestial Teapot are warm and inviting, but can be quick-tempered.

     The Diploceraspis - This is (or was, anyway) one of those real creatures that seems as strange as any fantasy beast.  Perhaps in this world they’re still around.

     The Crwth - An intrinsically funny word in English

        Having decided on my constellations, I also had to figure out how to fill the corners of my star chart.  Many of the fancy renaissance star charts feature decorative scenes in the four corners, and they’re often scenes from mythology.  Obviously my distant world needed its own mythology, so I depicted Night weaving a starry blanket for her daughter the Moon.  (I also wrote a poem about this, which will no doubt be shared in due course.)  In the lower corners I put philosopher-astronomers’ towers for their observations.  These are more-or-less copied from the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), but with the telescopes added.  The sun is also adapted from a renaissance woodcut.

        Of course, since the people who view this sky aren’t Romans with Roman mythology, they obviously wouldn’t speak Latin, let alone English, but since I wanted people in our world to be able to read the captions, I had to put them “in translation.”  Therefore I went with English for the constellation names for maximum comprehension, and Latin for the title cartouche for maximum fancy learnedness.

        All those little words aren’t ever as perfectly carved as I would like, and I didn’t notice until after I’d printed the whole batch that it’s missing the little connecting spots in the lower right corner of the border.  Despite my measuring and drawing guidelines, the border elements are pretty wonky, and I accidently carved away a border line from the left edge of the title cartouche.  I probably should have added a lot more stars, and the experiment with the phillips screwdrivers  did not make as clear an X as I had hoped.  So many imperfections!  And yet on the whole I’m pretty pleased with it.  I hope it pleases the imagination of others, too.

[Picture: Distant Stars, rubber block print by AEGNydam, 2025 (Image from NydamPrints.com.)]

D is for Dreams

        (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art.  I’ll be sharing lots of excerpts, and I’ll also be sharing some of the background on why we urgently need joyful stories.  There will be lots of other bloggers working their way through the alphabet this year, too, and you can find out what themes they’ve got planned at the Theme Reveal List.)

        “Dreams” is another of the poems in the book.  But rather than share the whole thing, today I’m sharing the illustration that goes with it.  This one isn’t a block print.  In fact, it’s a doodle.  The original doodle was made nearly 30 years ago, during a faculty meeting.  I found it so satisfying that I kept it in my notebook all these years.  It seemed like an appropriate place to begin when illustrating a dream world, because what are dreams, after all, but the doodlings of the subconscious mind?  To complete the illustration for my book, I added the doe, blue butterflies, fish, and quail, which are characters in the poem.  The quail and butterflies are adapted from independent block prints, which I scanned and added to the image digitally, and I drew in the doe and fish.

        In case you’re hoping for a Word of the Month on this last post of March, how about doodle?  The definition “draw aimlessly” appeared in 1935, and seems to have drawn from a variety of influences.  Doodle could be a verb meaning “to fritter time,” possibly associated with dawdle, and a doodle could also be a person: in the mid 17th century “a simpleton,” and in the mid 18th century “an idler.”  (That definition can be seen in “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”)  Doodling may be a way to fritter away time idly, but humans have done it for millenia, and nowadays studies suggest that it’s an excellent way to increase memory, alleviate stress, and regulate the brain.  And of course, now a doodle can also be a poodle crossbreed - which may also be good for alleviating stress!

        D is also for Delight, which is what I hope this book will bring you.  The ability to take delight in things is a muscle that sometimes atrophies as people grow up and become too “cool” or too “busy” to exercise it.  If you want to know what delights me, well, of course a lot of it is in this blog.  But you could also check out my Instagram, in which I post one picture each day of something that delights me, in the hope that it might delight others, too.

        Marketing Moral: Not ready to buy my book?  How about going to your local library and putting in a request for them to buy it for their collection.  You’ll get to read it for free (eventually… It can take a long time!) and better yet, you’ll be helping to make it available for others, as well.

        Proper Moral: Hang onto your dreams.  Even when the world doesn’t live up to our high ideals, it’s still important to have dreams to point us in the direction we want to go.

        Do you like to doodle?  Or do you have something else to keep your hands occupied or your mind regulated during long meetings?  Have you ever doodled something that surprised and delighted you?

[Picture: Dreams, illustration by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]

Robin's Nest in the Studio

         Today's post is about the creation of my most recent rubber block print.  It’s directly based on a photograph I took in 2020 when, during the COVID lockdown, robins nested in the forsythia right outside our front door.  In fact, I took dozens of pictures over the course of three weeks, recording my new neighbors’ development from turquoise eggs to wrinkly pink hatchlings to scruffy brown fledglings.  This photo remains one of my all-time favorites, but for a long time I didn’t seriously consider making a block print from it.  I thought it wouldn’t work very well because it’s got so many fiddly details and because the bright colors are such an important part of what makes it a beautiful image.

        So here we are, four years later, and I’ve finally made a block print after all.  What changed my mind?  Well, back in 2020 I wrote a poem about the robins’ nest, and I decided that the poem should be included in my forthcoming book Bittersweetness & Light.  Every poem and story in the book will have illustrations, and although of course most of those illustrations are block prints, my first plan was to include the photograph as the illustration for the poem.  But I wasn’t sure I liked the less consistent design of having a mix of such different styles of illustrations, and my beta readers agreed.  Plan B, therefore, was to make a faux block print, which I do digitally.  (If you want to know about that process, you can read my prior post about how I make my Faux Woodcuts.)  I was quite pleased with the way that came out and put it in the draft of the book, and moved on with my life.

        But the digital version turned out to be a victim of its own success: it helped me see how this image really could work as an actual relief block print, and when I needed something to carve during a summer show, I decided to use the digital version as the design for a physical version.  I printed it out on the printer, traced over all the lines, and transferred the design to rubber to carve.  I used the harder rubber that I dislike, because I have a bunch of it and I thought it would work relatively well for all the fine lines.  I used the oil-based Caligo Safe Wash ink so that I could then use watercolor to paint in the colors of flowers, leaves, and eggs.

        It certainly isn't as bright as the photograph, but in the end I’m very happy with how this ended up, even though (or perhaps because) it’s fairly different from my usual style.  I put it in the book, replacing the faux version.  My next show will be in just over a month: Roxbury Open Studios on October 5-6, so that will be the Robin’s Nest’s debut and my first chance to see whether it makes other people as happy as it makes me!

[Pictures: Robin’s Nest, photo by AEGNydam, 2020;

Robin’s Nest, rubber block print with watercolor by AEGNydam, 2024 (Image from NydamPrints.com).]