Woodcut Triptych: The Three of Us

If you’ve been reading this blog for a time, you know I love to use family photos as reference material in the studio. The photo for this woodcut was snapped in my grandparent’s backyard on my tenth birthday, just before my brothers and I joined the family for a hike in the Connecticut woods to look for watercress & flowers. We found plenty of both, as well as a couple of old stone grave markers from the 1800’s, near intersections of hand built, low stone walls that still criss-cross for acres through those woods today.

Three wood blocks carved into three siblingsThe woodcut in black & whiteThe Three of Us, woodcut triptych painted with watercolor

Don’t Hike in a Dress

I remember hiking near and testing the ice cold creek water, dappled Fall light coming through the trees, and the way soft moss and lichen resembled paintings on the stones.  I also recall wishing – heartily – that my parents hadn’t insisted on putting me in a dress for my birthday – with a pair of my brother’s argyle socks, for a hike. As you might guess, my family rocked fashion swag back then. Jeesh!

Art Quote

As Flannery O’Connor said answering a similar question [why are you drawn to uncomfortable or dark subjects], “It is the nature of my talent.”
That does not mean, however, that I do not enjoy the lighter side, because I do—and I find a great vent for that nature of my talent in children’s books. It’s yin and yang. To explore the dark, one must explore the light as well, and vice versa.

As William Faulkner said, the only thing worthwhile is failure; but failure coming in the striving for perfection. I seriously believe that. So, therefore, all I ever strive for is perfection. But knowing that perfection is elusive at best, and impossible in fact, is the internal “fuel” that keeps me going day in and day out.
Barry Moser, interviewed by Becky Crook for The Other Journal, 2009