Written by Eden Murray
https://www.edengrace.ca
Hi there! My name is Eden, and I made a lino reduction print for the She Tells Sea Tells poster this year! The piece is named Charlie, after my mischievous little brother. Read on for a wee story about the creation of the artwork, my life as a queer sailor on China Cloud, and my printmaking process.
Above you can see Charlie being a sweet and carefree mariner, balancing on my skiff’s bow. This past fall, he came up to Quadra Island with me to help out on putting the boat to bed for the winter. Lots of salting decks, checking on equipment, keeping out rain was in the cards for us on a classic west coast afternoon. We were out for many hours hauling buckets of water, getting drenched by fog and sea water alike. I was so so grateful for the lightness and the muscle Charlie brought with him and his rainbow suspenders. As you may know, keeping up on a wooden boat’s care is a full time job, and with China Cloud, she’s a family relic- adding a richness to the responsibility that at times, too, gets a bit soaked and drenched in fog. Nevertheless, we found some success as dusk weighed in and journeyed up to our grandparents’ home to warm up. My sweet grandmother snapped a photo of the commercial diver with his hands above his head. I had to steal it and tuck it away for my neverending winter art craze.
If you’re familiar with printmaking, you know that it has the textures and storylines of an old world craft, thus similar to that of tending to a seafarer’s pleasures. I use lino which involves carving a stamp that is then printed. For this piece, I took a step into a different process, and tried something called ‘Reduction Lino’, involving carving and printing multiple times on the same sheet of paper, all the while slowly unveiling the final design in a multi-color print. It was such an exciting new step for me. My dad is a boat builder, and mother an artist. She introduced me to lino as a young girl, while my dad taught me to sail. To get to continue craft and deepen it from both sides of my family, is a deeply enriching journey. You can read more about my process for this piece and how to make your own reduction print on my substack.
As the colors went down, you slowly got to see Charlie distinguished from the backdrop of the water. Yellow, red, pink, green, teal, black. They reminded me of nordic colours, a pulse of some Norwegian blood. Eventually when I was finally happy with it, I applied to do poster art for Northwest Maritime. It had been a dream since I was a kid to make art for the people that ran the Wooden Boat Festival. They accepted it for She Tells Sea Tales, and with a quick turnaround for the poster art, we decided to give Charlie long hair. In that last step of making a separate block of long braids, printing them in black, cutting and taping them to the artwork- I had the heart tickle of a reminder of just how immensely in love I am with trans and genderqueer people. As a queer person myself, with friends of all ages that are genderqueer, my whole body bubbles with joy tears and a wish to protect those that I love that are trans, non binary, +. The story of this print, from family seafaring to protecting the rights of and loving trans folks, is rooted in one of celebration! I, for one, am excited to see you at She Tells Sea Tales this year!
To see more of my artwork and writing, educational content on restoring China Cloud, and my work as a Craniosacral Therapist and facilitator, check out my website at https://www.edengrace.ca and sign up for my substack at https://edengrace.substack.com
Photo credits to Dag Goering and Eden Murray