… my attention could certainly be in two places at one time. One brain, here in the present, but two or more thoughts, perceptions, insights, who knew where.

        Ernie Wood, One Red Thread

     

A few years back, I published a novel about time travel – or, more precisely, about how the knowledge one could gain by being in two places and times at once might affect behavior, relationships, and perceptions in the present. But my thinking always was visual, always an artist’s. Now I find myself exploring these ideas in relief printmaking.

 

I make both linocut and woodblock reductive relief pints, almost exclusively of landscapes, landscape fragments, and architecture. Like my novel, these are all about places and times.

 

In some prints, I juxtapose images to create a compare/contrast scenario. In others, I explore a single image by rendering it in a manner that recalls the past. Sometimes, the matrix is all lino. Or it is all wood. Still others combine lino and/or wood blocks with found objects like roofing shingles or rotted boards. The effect is simultaneous views of the parts that make our world—or perhaps views of a complete old world that exists in both past and present.