Porcupine

Porcupine, shown with our Leaflet, Leaf Green fabric

Happy New Year!

After the holidays, I have mixed emotions. On the one hand, I feel trepidation about the state of the world and what the new year may bring. On the other hand, I feel gratitude for the blessings in my life and optimism for the positive possibilities of 2026. In other words, I feel both prickly and hopeful. And that seems to be a fitting state of mind for launching our newest limited edition, linocut print: Porcupine.

Making cider by hand  with heirloom apples.

When I was a child in Vermont, porcupines regularly raided our gnarled, heirloom Cox’s Orange Pippin and Duchess of Oldenburg apple trees for their fruit. The only person who loved the trees’ small, hard apples as much as the porcupines was my grandfather, an art historian who relished the tart cider the apples yielded in the fall. He kept a .22 on hand to deal with the porcupines, but his efforts never led to much more than bark blown off the sides of the old trees. Grandaddy was a brilliant scholar, but a terrible shot.

Before printing on heavy, cotton paper, I make trial prints on rice paper to be sure that the ink has the proper consistency and is evenly distributed.

In fairness to my grandfather, porcupines are known for damaging fruit trees as well as disturbing gardens. However, current wildlife research shows that porcupines give more than they take. Porcupines’ tree pruning opens the forest canopy and allows sunlight to stimulate plant growth on the forest floor. The felled trees and bark debris that porcupines leave in their wake provide habitat for other animals, such as insects and birds. And porcupines’ penchant for digging in the dirt improves the flow of water and nutrients in soil. Our Porcupine print pays homage to these special creatures.

The process of making Porcupine

To create the Porcupine print, I looked at porcupine images and made a series of sketches. Next I traced the most successful sketch with a charcoal pencil and then transferred the charcoal image onto a block by turning it face down and gently rubbing the back of the paper. After coloring the sketch on the block with a black Sharpie marker to delineate the areas of light and dark, I carved away the light sections. Next, using a masking technique, I used green ink to print an apple in the porcupine’s paws. Once I had printed the green areas on all of the pages of the print edition, I carved away the apple motif and printed the pages once again, but this time all over and with black ink. This approach is called a reduction method, a technique in which the printmaker uses the same block and removes surface area in between each printing pass. Colors layer on top of each other and/or sit next to one another and proper registration ensures image integrity.

Porcupine

Made with water-based printing inks and heavy cotton printing paper, Porcupine is a limited edition of 50 prints, measures 13” x 17”, and is available for purchase on our website.

May 2026 bring you few quills and many apples!