Arborglyphs

A Small Aspen Grove

Many years ago I trekked to the top of a mountain well-known to the people who live in Reno, although few ever venture to its summit. Peavine Mountain, it's called. I encountered a delicate grove of aspen trees, many of them inscribed with arborglyphs by Basque shepherds from the early 1900s. A few years prior, while I was a student at the University of Nevada, I spent a semester in the Spanish Basque Country. I saw similar drawings there in the Pyrenees Mountains, so encountering them in Nevada seemed so unlikely that I thought about it and told the story many times over many years. I did a little sketching on that one day, and eventually the sketches became part of the huge collection of such things in my studio. Some twenty-seven years later I encountered those amateurish sketches, experienced an emotional moment, and realized the time had come to develop something with them. This came at a time when one of my closest friends, a Basque in Bilbao, Spain, who I met on that semester abroad in the mid '80s, was going through a long, painful illness. I needed to do this to help myself through the experience, bringing me closer to Spain while living in my home far away: Nevada. The result is Arborglyphs. I didn't modify them, although I moved them around a little.

Most of the prints we encounter today are mass produced, or they're generated on digital equipment and sized to one's liking. My prints are nothing like that. I'm making original art. I call them prints only because I'm producing multiples, all of which look the same but have subtle differences because each is made entirely by hand. The blocks are carved for each color, then meticulously inked, then pressed onto a sheet of acid-free cotton paper (Stonehenge, made in America by Legion and prized by printmakers for its permanent qualities). Arborglyphs is made from eight blocks.

Each includes custom conservation framing under regular glass, all done by me, and it's ready to ship within 24 hours. My ebonized walnut moulding is made by hand and to my specifications by PictureWoods, the finest available. You may also purchase the print unframed.

Edition of 100

Image size: 12" x 16" with generous margin

Frame: 20" w x 24 3/4" h