03 May 2007

A New Process

I love and will continue the print series I started last year based on satellite maps ("Love Songs for a Small Planet"), but the process of making those prints is very long and arduous. I want to develop a different kind of process for myself, one that I can do when time is more limited, one that is more free and loose. I'd also like to develop a way of working that allows reuse of some of my blocks and I'd like to discover printing methods that create a more painterly effect.

In the quest of those elusive goals, I begin with the four heads in the previous post. I'm not exactly sure where this will lead, but that unsureness itself is a sign of progress for me; I'm not a "happy accident" kind of person, but I want to push myself farther in that direction.

Last night I picked up this block and began to draw on it:

TopknotHead

I had stumbled across this image a few weeks ago while searching the internet for ancient Indian drawings of the chakras for an editorial assignment:

TheGoldenEgg

This design is called hiranyagarbha, translated as the Golden Egg or the Golden Womb. In the Rigveda, Hiranyagarbha, the creator and animating principle of all being, is said to have arisen in the beginning inside a golden egg resplendent as the sun. I imagine this series of human heads to be about the mind and ways of thinking, so I like the idea of the first print being about the birth of thought. I drew The Golden Egg inside the head, drawing directly on the wood:

DrawingOnTheBlock

And then I cut a few stencils to use with the blocks:

MakingStencils

4 comments:

BZ said...

I'm looking forward to watching this one evolve. I read the entry on Wikipedia about Hiranyagarbha - how fascinating. I have a theme in my notebook to pursue a series along similar lines as well - renewal, eternal life, fertility, that sort of thing, although not so much the question of creation... In my view it's tied together - egg, life, beginnings and endings... all that, but the part I've been mulling lately is how humans fit in with the rest of life here on this planet. Or do we. Much.

Go with it, Annie!

Diane Cutter said...

I can tell this will be another of your beauties, with those intriguing lines.

Annie B said...

Thank you both for your support! Diane, I was thinking of your work and your use of ancient or indigenous designs as I worked on this.

Nicole Raisin Stern said...

Interesting what you say about not being a "happy accident" sort of person. That's how so much of my life has flowed and now i am working towards incorporating a little more method and planning into my life and art.