Emerge! 2026

 I will have two pieces in the Emerge! 2026 exhibit starting tomorrow at the Hannan Center in Detroit. The show will run through mid September . 

My two pieces are a sculpture and a woodblock print, keeping with the them of emergence. 

Emerging

soapstone
photo by John Wood

The sculpture, pictured above was carved out of soapstone and has all these great looking colors that come out when wet. I had applied a coat of tung oil recently that brought out some of those colors, but it did make it darker than what is pictured here. 

Ascending

9x12

woodcut print

The woodcut print was a lot of fun to do. My first woodcut, actually. I was happy with how the patterns of the sea came out. And... it's a hammerhead!

So, the opening is tomorrow as stated in the flyer and it goes from noon until 7.

I will be exhibiting alongside a few friends, as well. Dug Rusin will have two colored pencil pieces and Mary Stebbins Taitt and Laura Reed will have pieces, too. Stop on by, check out the show. I'm sure that it will be a good one (I saw some of the works when I was dropping my pieces off and there are some good ones). And remember, there will be a hammerhead present!

Saint-Exupery Woodblock Printing Process

 

The process as to how my print of Antoine Saint-Exupery came to be is now up on my Substack.

Saint-Ex

 

This past Saturday I wrapped up a three week Japanese woodblock workshop with Yobuko Yamasaki, which was a lot of fun. Good instructor, good classmates. 

My subject this time around was the French aviation pioneer Antoine de Saint-Exupery. I've been immersed in his world for the past few months, reading his bio and a couple of his own works of fiction that were based on his adventures. In this workshop, we were able to do two colors, so that meant two separate pieces of wood to carve. However, when I did my initial design, I had three colors in mind. So, when the time came to print, I needed to make some choices. I think that it came out ok. I'll go into more of the process in one of my next Substack posts. 

Hammerhead Woodblock Print

 

10x13

print w/sumi ink

A couple of weeks ago, I finished up a three week course in Japanese Woodblock Engraving with instructor Nobuko Yamasaki. This here print above is my inaugural woodblock print. A hammerhead (of course!) for this week's open-themed #SundayFishSketch.