– A Jackalope in black & white — a woodcut interpretation of the mythological wild-west-beast.

– An illustration for Wells Book Arts Center’s fifth chapbook, Negative Compass by Bret Shepard.

– And three wood engraved illustrations for the University of Kentucky King Library Press’ upcoming letterpress publication, “Ma non e una cosa seria” (But it’s not really serious, 1917), a Luigi Pirandello play translated from Italian by Ann Colcord for the University of KY’s King Library Press. A comedy in three acts following a wealthy womanizer and the homely/humble manager of a boarding house. The book will be available late 2018 from the King Library Press.

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The conference theme is “Go West.” In that spirit, Gillespie sold the Jackalope portfolio exchange theme to 23 participants: “The frontier is forever mysterious, and popular mythology has forever been a part of the lure to travel to the West… Certainly, there must be wild, enchanted species still hiding away in the lost recesses of the back country… If there is a single favorite illusion that captures and thrills us most, especially when we think of going West in America, it may be the idea that there are members of Lepus townsendii, the White-tailed Jackrabbit, that have evolved to grow horns.”

In addition to the great theme/subject of the portfolio exchange, Gillespie gathered a great group of artists – my kinda tribe – how could I refuse?

And so, I researched my subject and made some sketches. At first I thought this might be a late addition to my Animal Terrorists series – the origins of the legend of the Jackalope are rooted in a relative of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) – the Shope Papillomavirus. Whereas HPV corrupts cells in the human cervix to build cancerous tumors, in rabbits the papillomavirus manifests as hard, keratinized horns. I explored the idea of a micro/ macro perspective with Shope or HPV cells or a close-up of skin and hair follicles. These all seemed to obvious and literal, so I opted for a lighter comparison to Peter Rabbit and a visual relation to the symptoms of HPV. Not exactly cutesy origins…

A visual documentation of the process:

The original thumbnail sketches and the final sketch, ready to be transferred to the block.

The beginning of the cutting. This is a woodcut, not a wood engraving – a transition in scale from my usual work.

I blacken the relief surface as I cut, so I can see the drawing and marks easier.

I pulled a proof on tracing paper so I could more easily develop the rest of the composition. Combining screen printing and woodcut can be tricky, but I have a pretty good system to help match the two processes – that’s a whole separate blog post!

This stencil is ready to print. The stencil is made by coating a polyester fabric with a photo-sensitized liquid emulsion. The image is hand-drawn with opaque paint marker on a translucent film-like sheet. The areas of photo-sensitized emulsion that are exposed to UV light harden and become water-proof so that I may print with acrylic, water-based inks. Unexposed areas wash away with water to create the stencil.

Colors one and two printed – the first was yellow and the second, blue.

And the third color, a transparent darker green.

Finally, printing the woodcut on top of all that screen printed color.

I struggled with the title, trying to tie together the awkward ideas behind it and the angry, devil-horned Peter Rabbit. I settled on “The lumpy lore of the Jackalope.” Hilariously, one of the other participating artists had the exact same title – minus one word!

The transparency and overlapping of colors make magic – my favorite part is the brown eye.

View the entire Jackalope Portfolio on exhibit in downtown Laramie, Wyoming October 3 through 6 during the Mid America Print Council Conference!

Check out the black & white version of the Jumping Jackalope available for sale in my online store.

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