A Man Following a Woman in Dark Woods - Limited Edition 3 of 12 Print

The characters in this drama are certainly archetypal - in the sense of Joseph Campbell's "Hero with a Thousand Faces" - but who is the predator and who is the prey? Or is it just a comedy, or a game? However you interpret it, it's older even than our species, an image firmly embedded in our collective unconscious, to use Jung's term. In fact, just today, while following Janet through the woods on our daily walk, I saw a daddy longlegs spider following a mama longlegs across the path! Baby longlegs on the way. I don't remember what triggered the latest re-emergence of this theme, which I've used in several paintings, sculptures, an animation and then this linocut. Usually, the action happens on the beach in south Florida where I'm from and where it's a common sight. Once it was inspired by Lautreamont's "Chants of Maldoror," in which Maldoror follows a woman under a red cloud. (See additional images; for the animation see .html) But this last one may be my favorite. There's something about dark woods.... This is a 2-color linocut, image 7 x 10 inches, sheet approximately 11 x 14 inches. They can ship unmounted or matted with white or off-white mat. The Criswell Linocut I began these experiments with linoleum back in 1999. Although these prints may resemble etchings, drypoints, lithographs or some strange hybrid, they are true relief prints, printed in two or more colors from linoleum blocks. I didn't invent this technique - Picasso and his printer Arnera did - but I've adapted it to my own purposes and, since nobody else in the world is doing it as far as I know, I'm calling it "The Criswell Linocut." The two most important things about this technique are that (1) I cut the designs with a drypoint needle and (2) that I print the dark color first and the light color second. This enables me to draw my image directly on the key block, just as I would draw with a pen on paper, rather than cut away everything BUT the image as in traditional relief printmaking. For more info about this, checkout .html.