Friday, May 21, 2010

Bird Egg, Camera Walk and Haiku


Many folk tales have "within-within" imagery. For example, Russian fairy tales often involve a journey where the hero or heroine needs to find a magical object enclosed within many layers of objects or even animals. Here is Koshchey speaking, from Alexsandr Afanas'ev's collection of Slavic tales, describing to the heroine where his "death" can be found: "My death is far away. In the sea there is an island, on that island stands an oak, under the oak a coffer is buried, in the coffer is a hare, in the hare is a duck, in the duck is an egg, and in the egg is my death." This is 8 by 10 linocut, just carved and printed.


Camera Walk pictures—a one-block, half-an-hour walk.

And first haiku of summer:

Cry of the catbird
calls me back to sadhana
in the heat of May.

10 comments:

Tammie Lee said...

this is a wonderful post, every bit of it. Thank you for taking me in to the inside of art and words, layer after layer. Your photos and poem are also wonderful.

Lins Artyblobs said...

Very nice!

Amanda Baeza said...

I really love woodblock art! Your "rescue" is also my favorite

justdoodleit said...

Even many Indian stories have characters with their heart or death hidden in multiple layered puzzle like places...Somehow, it is suggestive of going through many layers life experiences to reach the destination.

Like that tree and networked roots :)

Katka said...

Very nice! I love Russian folk tales and you've done a lovely job interpreting this one.

Jane Wilson said...

lovely! love your work!

Nicky Linzey said...

I love it when you illustrate a tale. This has worked beautifully.

Cathy said...

I do so love your linocuts Nicola. I must get back to doing some, not that they will be this good...haha. I love fairy tales that are more than fairy tales, especially Russian and Eastern European ones. They seemed to have the balance just right.

Art4Sol said...

Beautiful work...I will be back!

Jeff said...

YES! I was fortunate to meet you today. It is all a tapestry, I am glad to visit your part of it.
Jeff Tomassetti