Jai-Alai 1939

Louis Schanker made this print, Jai-Alai, with color woodcut, and it's all about shapes and the process of layering them. It's like he's saying, "Here's a game, but also here's how I make something." The texture is so key. You can almost feel the grain of the wood and the way the ink sits on the paper. Look at how the blues and greens overlap; there's a real physicality. Then there are the shapes, those pink triangles, the yellow crescent, all contained within these big, blobby forms that could be figures or fields. See how they have their own texture, a subtle ripple almost like water? It's like he's playing with representation and abstraction at the same time. Schanker reminds me of another process-driven printmaker, someone like Dox Thrash. Both of them embrace the happy accidents that come with printmaking. Art is just a game, right? A way of seeing and thinking and then sharing that with the world.