St Januarius

While at the opening in Lakewood last week, my father came up with an idea that he shared with some of the faculty at the school, who liked the idea. Then, with everyone in favor of it, he told me about it. The idea was to bring in one of my wood blocks to put on display, so visitors who are unfamiliar with the process can see how it works. However, leaving an uncancelled block just sitting out, especially one that I haven't finished editioning, seems like a bad idea. But there is something to the idea of having something physical for viewers to see.

So I came up with an alternate plan- a new block. The easiest thing for me to put together on short notice is a new saint. I had done some research on a few, but the one that was ready to go in my mind was St Januarius, commonly known to Italians as San Gennaro. He was brought to my attention by someone who purchased one of my mini-saints and inquired about having one of this saint. That may yet come, but I decided that for now I'd do a full size one, and can always do a small version later if it works well. Besides, I'd rather have a full size saint block to go with full size saints in the gallery.

As for the story- the biography in Butler's is all pretty standard stuff, common enough to most martyrs, and no stories that I haven't done earlier in the series. However, the thing that San Gennaro is most famous for now is something that happened after his death- a church in Naples has an alleged relic of his blood, which miraculously reliquifies on those ceremonial occasions that it is brought out on display. The blood story seemed the way to go. What I came up with was the idea of blood donation, complete with the bag of collected blood. I'd done an image of giving blood once before, part of the Fourth of July series, but this one will be larger and in color.

I've donated blood many times myself, but took the time to check some online references and made some quick sketches. Some of these were absorbed into the drawing that I eventually did on the block. After that, I began cutting. Usually I start by cutting out the whole border, then the date at the top, then the main image section. This time I decided to cut literally half the block, so viewers can see how the block goes from drawing to cutting. I'll leave it at this state for now, with plans to drop it off at the gallery on my way to one of my workdays in Ocean County this coming week. The first photo shows the original drawing- the arm with the needle stands out best right now. The blood collection bag may be harder to discern, intertwined with the saint name, but color will help clarify the shapes in the final print. The second photo shows the day's progress, left side cut, right side not.