There’s a crooked oak tree on my neighbor’s property with little branches sprouting all along its only trunk. It had a personality that demanded attention, so I began an elongated reduction woodcut. After the third color had been printed, the entire edition mysteriously disappeared from the studio. At this point, perplexed and disappointed, I put it aside. Three years later, looking at the wood and the patina it had acquired with three printings and age, it occurred to me to make a life-size digital print of the wood itself and to embellish the image with drypoint. The drypoint mimicked the woodcut, but by mistake was printed upside down the first time it was run through the press on top of the digital print. Eureka!
“Osculation” means “the act of kissing.” A kiss to all our mistakes and misfortunes which lead to creative problem solving!
