Camino Prints, Part Deux

Call me crazy.

It’s not enough to have to retrieve some of my Camino prints from Oakland and a showcase here in Santa Cruz, clean the frames and glazing of the 19 existing prints, update my mailing list, and in general get ready for a show that opens next week.

I’ve also decided that I have to carve a new print.

Actually, I never intended to have 19 prints in the Camino series. Nineteen is a nice number, being a prime and all that, so no disrespect intended to it. I only stopped there because I ran out of time; Sarah-Hope had arranged a show of my prints even before I left Spain, and I had to print to that deadline. Nineteen is where I happened to stop. And now that I have a new show of the prints lined up at the Michael Angelo Gallery here in Santa Cruz, I’d like to add at least one more of the images that have been floating around in my head for a couple of years.

So the next one will be Storks, Azofra, based on a sketch I made in that village. These were the last storks I saw, since it was late September and time for them to migrate south.

Here is another sketch of the village, this time of the albergue or pilgrims’ hostel where I stayed. It was a sort of cozy lean-to attached to the back of the church, the tower of which is the location of the storks’ nest.

And, for more context, a photo of a street in the village. I love the textures of the brick and stone, and hope to capture some of that in my print.

I have a funny long story about staying in this village, but won’t burden my readers with the details. It basically involves me translating what our elderly, soft-spoken, rurally-accented Spanish host was telling us about the water being shut off (with my abysmal Spanish) to my French hiking companions (with my almost-as-bad French). Suffice it to say there was misunderstanding involved, and it was just the one building –ours– without water, not the whole village, and while we did without showers and had to haul our cooking water from the village fountain, the pilgrims who stayed at the deluxe modern albergue were clean and warm and well-fed.

Anyway, here is the start of my print.

I’ve taken my sketch and resized it to fit the block, and shifted some of the elements slightly to enhance the design. I’ve decided not to flip the image while carving, which means that the final print will actually be the reverse of real life. Call it artistic license. Most of the images in my Camino prints face in the same direction, much like the Camino itself, and I wanted this one to be a bit of a change of pace.

So now back to the carving block. Fingers crossed that I get it done. Come to the First Friday reception to find out if it’s in the show!

Details:
collateral
Michael Angelo Gallery
1111-a River Street, Santa Cruz [see map]
Opening reception Friday, December 4, 6pm – 8:30pm