The Fourth of July

 This is kind of an important day here at Studio Arrabbiata, mostly because of my series of the same title- done in grad school, an idea that came to me almost instantly and took a year to finish.  The resulting series, with its 366 woodcut prints, has been exhibited 4 times and is probably the thing I am best known for.  I used the set itself as a teaching device- a self bound book of photocopies of the entire series in order- an excellent way to show what is possible with a relief print.  (like so much else that I own, it's in storage and I can't get to it right now, but it should still be fine when I get it back)  Photos taken of the original prints were used to create a blog that lists the stories that go with each print, or at least what I remember of them, but then again, if I hadn't made the prints, it is unlikely that I would remember most of the incidents that inspired each print.  That was kind of the point of the series, perhaps an influence from the Dave Lasky mini-comic story that was one of the inspirations, that small incidents can be great things if remembered, and art is one way of doing that.  

It was in this series that I first created a woodcut showing the classic image from this holiday, fireworks in the sky.  It actually appears in the first July 4 print (there are two in the series, one at the beginning and one at the end), a bunch of things I associated with the day.  That print may have influenced another one, by a former student from the woodcut classes I taught in Belmar.  In what I think was her second ever woodcut, she did an image of fireworks in the night sky, over a boardwalk, a black and white print.  She was pleased with it, enough so to enter it in a county art show.  Immediately afterwards she told me about it, very nervous.  She had seen other entries to the show, which had a theme of sights from local places, and many of those where photographs.  How could she compete?  I told her not only could she compete, but that she might do very well- a relief print has much more power than a mere photograph, and people often respect what goes into it.  Sure enough, she took second place in the all media competition.  I never saw the show itself, but at least for that moment whoever gave the awards liked her piece a lot and gave her a prize.  Such is the power of woodcut.

Of course, maybe she was influenced by another piece I had done, which was exhibited (and won a prize) in that same space I was teaching, which also showed fireworks exploding over a boardwalk, but that is a color piece, not the black and white she exhibited in that county show.  I showed that color piece in another location a few years ago, and sold two copies, which had to be reprinted and recolored, but I had an original to work from and figured it out.  That piece can be seen here:

Off hand, I can't remember when I first made this print, and when that class was that my student  took, so I really can't verify all this.  It goes back to before this blog was started.  I could dig up the dates of the show that my color piece was in Belmar, but without the other information, it's not worth the work. However, I do remember that she took my woodcut class, decided to enter one of her early efforts from that class, and was surprised that she won an award going against works that she assumed jurors would like better than hers.  

The odd thing about the color image, is that many times over the years, I have have viewers swear to me that they have been to that very boardwalk and remember the sights well.  As the artist I know that it is completely made up, some based on things that are common on boardwalks in New Jersey, with a few things drawn from very different boardwalks. and a lot of it just out of my head.  But I guess if feels real enough.