The Fantastic Fantastic Garden

Somehow time has flown by and I am just getting around to hanging the Fantastic Garden print.  I'm sure that I will enjoy it much more now that it is out of the drawers and up on the wall.  Hanging was not an easy project and definitely not for the faint of heart, or those of us who have our qualms about teetering on step stools on top of cabinets leaning precariously over exposure units thinking all the while that we are about to fall and break our neck.  But, the job is done and I am breathing again.  (Isn't it strange that when we put our bodies in peril, no matter how slight, we tend to hold our breath until back to normal footing?  You'd think we would be busy getting as much air in as possible, not keeping it out.  Oh, well.... that's what most of us do, anyway.)

I suppose to really appreciate the peril involved in this  activity you first must realize that the ceiling is at least 10 ft.  (I'm sure it is 15 ft. if it is an inch, but I'm told it is 10 ft. and he has made me a believer after all these years that he is always right.)  But, I was the one hanging in mid-air hanging the garden.   NEWS FLASH!!  This just in:  the ceiling is 12ft.  This is the first time in the history of Francis that he has been mistaken.  Not wrong, mind you, but a little mistaken.  There's a difference.

The Fantastic Garden is a puzzle print - the result of the organizational, drafting, cutting, sawing,  creative, herding, and printing skills of Maria Arango-Diener.  I've forgotten how many artists are involved, but they come from all over the globe and each contributes their idea of the project theme, in this case the Fantastic Garden, and then Maria re-assembles all the parts, prints them and sends us each a print.  This print is 4 sheets, each 22" x 30", so that would make the total surface 44" x 60" if my calculator doesn't lie.  Altogether it is a pretty fantastic woodblock print carved from cherry plywood and printed on Stonehenge Rising.

Thanks to all you wonderful Baren Forum woodblock members (and especially to Maria the Wonder Woman of the World of Woodblock) for enriching my life and making my studio Extraordinaire.  It will be even more extraordinaire when I get the City of the World up on the wall.  But, that will have to wait until next week - it will take me that long to drag the ladder back in again.