St Egwin

In the critique group that meets in our Studio, there has often been a custom to do a little homemade artsy gift exchange for the holiday, though usually not getting done until January as we artists are often not organized enough to do something for an early December meeting.  Last year it was suggested that instead we make some baby gifts for group regular Jane, expecting her first.  The baby came in late December, and she had sent a photo and birth information to Molly in time for us to see it at our January meeting.  I decided to go ahead and make a saint print for the occasion, which would also serve the purpose of helping to restock my overall supply of saint blocks, mostly destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.

Molly told me the birth date was December 30th, a date I had never done.  After looking through the options in copy of Butler's, I chose St Egwin as the best.  It's a common enough story- a reformer type upsets locals who don't agree with his zeal and try to get him discredited and removed.   Egwin was asked to leave his home church in England and report to Rome.  Before doing so, he made the point of putting himself in iron shackles and tossing the key into the Avon river.  He eventually arrives at the Vatican and the complaints are dismissed, and a fish is caught (maybe in Rome, maybe between France and England on his return trip) containing the key to his chains.  (finding things in fish is not an uncommon occurrence in saint stories)  I've done at least 3 other saint prints that involve fish or fishing, so I needed a new approach.  I reread the biography a few times, which stated the key was found "in the belly of the fish", not the stomach.  Seeing the word belly brought to mind the belly meat of tuna, prized by eaters of sushi.  There was my new thing.

I don't dislike sushi, but I'm not so into it that I get it a lot, so I mostly did internet research.  Lots of sketches on paper (above) from photos I found there.  From those I developed a composition, and by January 22nd, I had completed the block sketch shown below.

By January 26th, I had finished cutting the block and pulled three proofs.  Colors on the first were purely experimental, the second had a more finalized combination, and on January 30th I colored the final version, shown below.

I packaged it in a sheet of glassine, inside a mat board folder, in a piece of wrapping paper, her name printed on it from metal type, and placed in the baby gift bag in time for the February critique.  And there is sat until tonight.  However it did mean that I had something new to show tonight, my first new print since the summer.  Jane said she really liked it, which made her feel bad to tell me that the baby's birthday had been December 31st.  I wrote down exactly what Molly told me, so wherever the mistake happened, it wasn't on my end.  When it becomes December 31st here in New Jersey there's still a big chunk of the world in December 30th, so we'll go with that.  And if Jane decides to commission future prints for any subsequent children, she'll know to contact me directly with the dates.