The next opening at the Waxwing went well last week. I met several nice people and got to talk paper-cutting shop with one guy. Unfortunately I came down with some bug on Sunday and I’ve been trying to shake it since. I may still try and attempt a horizon in this cut, but so far every thing I’ve tried looks awful.

I started out with the general idea to make a more well thought out sea monster image than my last one,  but it turned into this.

I recently bought this book: Wilder Mann: The Image of the Savage.  It is a wonderful book documenting seasonal  rituals, festivals & ceremonies of western Europe. Unfortunately, of the 270+ pages, the descriptions of what is taking place are limited to about 20 pages at the back. Each event only receives about a paragraph. Still, it is worth a look and the time it would take to read the brief text. No, there are no rituals involving caged foxes, but the symbology & significance of the characters involved  influenced me while making this.
I’m sure it will again.

I’m doing some more pieces for the Waxwing in Milwaukee. Originally I had a shadow image for this with a cabin in the background. I took it out because it ended up being too much.
This started out as a facing front William Tell influenced piece but then I started reading about  Palnatoke, and realized that the story wasn’t very original. My version ended up being more inspired by the last verse of Cohen’s “Who By Fire” than the Tell story that it started out as.

I winterized my yard today: planting shrubs, putting away garden hoses, converting my ATV into a snow plow, taking down the clothes line cords, pruning trees, bringing in the feeders for birds that don’t overwinter here…
This papercut is comparable to that process.

I have to get on the road, no time to comment. Listening to Leonard Cohen all weekend and being a Guillermo del Toro fan is most likely behind this.