Description

Shut, too, in a tower of words, I mark

On the horizon walking like the trees

The wordy shapes of women, and the rows

Of the star-gestured children in the park.

Some let me make you of the vowelled beeches,

Some of the oaken voices, from the roots

Of many a thorny shire tell you notes,

Some let me make you of the water’s speeches

Printmaking has become an increasingly important preoccupation for me, subjected to design rather than fine art scrutiny, and bearing witness to my continuing interest in letterforms and the design and function of typography. Lacking a formal training in printmaking, I use solutions that tend to present themselves through non-standard and mixed media.

This poem is only apparently descriptive. The visual icons are small ,implying context, like isolated archipelagos washed in an ocean of non-visual words. Some of these icons – the wordy women, the starred child, the raven in flight – are drawn together, as inhabitantsin a wind scoured Cwmdonkin Park.The icons need to be discovered and invite investigation. Additionally, the scale of the print invites personal retrospection, anindividual response concentrated and made small by the distancingof time.

This print is a relief white line image, cut in lino, after the manner of wood engraving using oil based relief ink and printed on a Tofko cylinder press.