"Magic Lily" Linocut Print

INSPIRATION

My first encounter with Magic Lilies occurred the day before I got married.  I was hosting a small get-together for my bridesmaids.  At that time I lived in an apartment that was on the second floor of an old house in Raleigh, NC.  I had asked the owners if it was OK to host my friends in the backyard.  I woke up that morning and was setting up some tables when I noticed the most amazingly gorgeous flowers had literally appeared overnight.  The owner of the house saw them too and she told me I could cut some for the table centerpieces.  I felt like the luckiest girl in the world and will always associate that bit of magic with my wedding.

Fast forward almost twenty years to the summer of 2019 when George and I were taking our daily walk in the neighborhood.  For days I had been admiring a driveway lined with magic lilies.  On this particular day I noticed the magic lilies were done flowering.  Even though the flowers were past their prime, I saw such beauty in the way the dried flowers hung from the seed heads.  I took a few photos and thought maybe I would make a print of it one day (which is an almost daily occurrence).

Later that fall I needed to make a demo of how to carve a relief print and was looking through a thousand photos from my walks for inspiration when I saw this photo.  I immediately thought, "These pods look like girls with their hair in ponytails"...or maybe bridesmaids in a circle.  I loved the idea and even though my hair is starting to grey, I saw myself dancing in that joyful ring of pony-tailed girls. With that thought the decision was made to work on this print and I started planning my sketch.

CARVING

Another reason I liked the image above was that it easily lent itself to a two-color print. I had been intrigued by the work of other printmakers who cut their plates apart, ink the colors separately, and then put them back together like a puzzle to print.  The great thing about that idea is that the printing can be done all at once.

Below you can see the carved plate before inking and cutting the excess away.

“Quietly and softly carve out a life on your own terms. Stop apologizing. Forgive that sometimes things take a while. Forgive the low-level near-constant fear. Celebrate the small successes. Perhaps joy is its own body of water, wade out into it”. 

― Meg Fee

BLACK AND WHITE PLATE

Below you can see the excess plate has been cut away.  Sometimes I carve it away but if you truly want white space without "chatter" it is best to take it all away.  At this point the plate is black because I used an ink pad to pat it down so I could better see the lines.

BLACK AND WHITE PRINT

I decided I would make six black and white prints before cutting the plate apart to make the two-color print.  I printed the black and white prints in February and had one of the smoothest days of printing I can remember.

"Magic is that which renders something beautiful… It is that which makes one feel as if the world is more than it is presently understood to be, and yet at the same time the world is working itself out in a good and beautiful way.”

― Brendan Myers

TWO-COLOR PRINT

After printing the black and white version I had to cut the plate apart.  My original plan was to print everything together, but with George's urging I reconsidered.  The print was too intricate with lots of small pieces to ink and then put back together like a puzzle.  If the pieces weren't inked enough it would be very difficult to roller more ink without affecting the color around it.  So I decided to use my Ternes-Burton registration clips and print it as a two-color print.  That means printing the first color, letting it dry, and then printing the second color.

I ended up printing the green plate first and wasn't crazy about how the green turned out.  But I decided it might improve when I printed the burnt orange.  Sadly, that was not the case.  The colors were NOT GOOD.  So I started over, printing the orange first the second time around. 

At that point it was already early March and I had to switch projects.  I wanted to be a part of a show that had a deadline so I switched gears and began work on the "She Oak" print.  And then the pandemic hit... which slowed everything down.

By the time I finally returned to re-print the green it was late June!  I spent a fair amount of time trying to remember what convoluted, crazy plan I had come up with in the first place.  Luckily I had traced where both plates were supposed to go.  But, trying to double-stick each tiny piece down EXACTLY where needed to go was a meticulous, long operation.

Below is a video of the entire process from sketch to framing and me pulling the final green color.

(Video music from BenSound.com.)

After my first printing of the "hideous" green, I really wanted to spend some time mixing the perfect green.  I even got out my Pantone color swatches and picked out the perfect color.  Picking the perfect green and mixing the perfect green are two different things, but in the end I got pretty close to what I wanted.  The color, however, was really difficult to photograph and I tried to color correct these images to reflect the true color.  Some prints look better online and some look better in person...and I have to say this print fits in the latter category.

“That's the thing about magic; you've got to know it's still here, all around us, or it just stays invisible for you.”

― Charles de Lint

SIGNING

One of the final steps for every print is ranking, numbering, titling, and signing.  I have never liked my handwriting, so I find these days extra stressful.  I also don't like to do it when the cats are around, but Otus was sleeping so I was able to sneak in a quick photo with the prints spread out.  It is such a relief once this step is done.  I feel like the print is truly finished and I can put it into the flat file nestled safely between sheets of glassine.

FRAMING

Every time I make a print I always think I should use a standard frame size so the framing will be easier.  I was proud of myself because I thought ahead and bought this frame before starting this print.  The frame had an image in it which I took out.  I then stained the frame to better match the print, cut a new mat and put it all back together.  The only problem...this frame was not a standard size... and it was the only frame of its kind.  So I will have one framed print to offer.  But I thought it turned out beautifully, so in the end I was very happy with it.

“There's a flame of magic inside every stone and every flower, every bird that sings and every frog that croaks. There's magic in the trees and the hills and the river and the rocks, in the sea and the stars and the wind, a deep, wild magic that's as old as the world itself. It's in you too, my darling girl, and in me, and in every living creature, be it ever so small. Even the dirt I'm sweeping up now is stardust. In fact, all of us are made from the stuff of stars.”

― Kate Forsyth, The Puzzle Ring

The thing I find so interesting about this print is that the journey began 19 years ago.  We never know how one small moment of magic will continue to affect us through the years.  And the story began before I was even aware of it.  Some human or bird planted that seed in that backyard in Raleigh long before my wedding day.  And one woman sharing her magical flowers with another grew into a linocut print almost two decades later!  We never know how our small gestures or acts of kindness might affect others and travel into the future.  It is my hope that the magic of these pony-tailed lilies continues on in ways in which I cannot fathom.

“It's all a matter of paying attention, being awake in the present moment, and not expecting a huge payoff. The magic in this world seems to work in whispers and small kindnesses.”

― Charles de Lint

This print is available at NessyPress.com.

ADDENDUM: I just found out Magic Lilies (L. squamigera) do not technically produce seeds...hence it may not be proper to call them "seed pods."  For those botanists out there, click here for a fascinating article about a man who tenaciously tried to propagate a seed from them.