My new print, 'String Around the Posies', displays black flowers in a color arrangement of individually inked cut-shaped linoleum.  The center linoleum design with the circular red string, black flowers and yellow background were printed using the reductive method of one block.

My printer's alchemy changed the petite, yellow daffodils into mysterious blacks and laid them on a field of yellow. Bright colors always sing out loudly when highlighted next to black.

Black flowers were favorites of the Victorian gardens. My favorites are the Black Hollyhock and the 'Queen of the Night' tulip.

Or maybe the print expresses a little Goth in me, representing the touches of darkness and shadows in the corner of the garden.

With an invitation to create an image for 13Forest Gallery's summer show, "Tag, (you're it)", the catalyst for the print's image came from the children's nursery rhyme (see below) and a table arrangement of dainty daffodils from my garden.

Ring around the rosies
Pocket full of posies
Achoo, Achoo
We all fall down.

Some researchers associate the poem's meaning back to the time of the Black Plague in Europe.

My print, 'String Around the Posies', is a play on words and color: in an edition of 8 on BFK paper.


Tag (You're It)
@ 13Forest Gallery, 167A Mass Ave, Arlington, MA
May 11 through August 31
http://13forest.com/index.shtml