Island in Maine

This woodcut was inspired by a visit to an old friends house with my youngest daughter Elsie on an island off the cost near Port Clyde in Maine. Low slung, covered in thick tussocky grasses and some pine trees, it wasn’t hard to imagine the devastating power The Atlantic could dish out on this delicate refuge. A bit like Milton Avery, I often find myself conjuring the equivalent of an 'establishing shot' when trying to use imagery as metaphor to tell stories  for what it is to  be human. So that here the perspective of the image has  shifted from a more usual ground level view  to a semi-birdseye vantage-point.  Elsie is seen sailing a tiny dinghy with her friend Emily. Panning out and out and out beyond this freeze-frame, and we would see them all alone in this vast ocean of rippled water. As a parent, nervousness and fear are conjured up as our children continuously  push out into  the periphery of their world as they grow - TH