A busy day at work threw itself at me. I almost let it get to me. Instead of cranky, I got creative.
I had a piece of lino in my hands, and a head full of ideas. For some reason a cat got stuck in my mind – and wouldn’t leave. I quickly scribbled up an image that made me smile, and always will. My cat Jeffrey, the sea horse.
I started cutting away with tools, and immediately fell in love with the process, all over again. I haven’t made a lino cut in over a decade. How does this happen?!
Here is my image of Jeff, loosely based on the photo, in her best sea horse pose frolicking amongst nasturtiums and ferns. Jeffrey turns 17 soon, and I thought it would be a lovely homage to our old girl – should she choose to shuffle off anytime soon. (Yes, we are well aware Jeffrey is a masculine name and our Jeff is girl. Long story.) It was such an engrossing process I sat in silence for a few hours without realising everyone had gone to bed hours before. The heater was off for the night, and my toes were cold before I saw reason and headed off to bed. Leaving this half done was fairly torturous.
I love this form of print making and felt so satisfied finishing it in a few hours over two evenings. Yes, I ignored my family during this time and I believe was a much needed break from each other. And with a major pain-in-the-ass-teenage-man-child in the house, fairly necessary in my opinion. I haven’t made a print yet of Jeffrey, (I am going to scratch out a bit of her fur to represent Jeff’s tortoiseshell red fur before printing). Hopefully tomorrow there will be time to squeeze this cut through the press, as actual work got in the way of art today.
Emily Red Studio 