Canoes c. 1917

Edna Boies Hopkins made this image of boats and bathers using woodblock printmaking, and the results are really something else. I’m thinking about the labor that goes into making a print like this, the kind of focus and sustained effort that I recognize from my own studio practice. This water scene emerges through layers, and I can imagine the artist carving into the wood, making marks that will eventually come together to make the whole. What was Hopkins thinking as she made this? Did she labor over details or embrace a more spontaneous approach, letting the wood guide her? And then there's the colors, those soft blues, greens, yellows and oranges. The colors create a calming, dreamy sensation. The repetition of lines, the flat planes of color – it reminds me of other printmakers thinking about color and space, like Bonnard. Artists are always talking to each other, you know? What Hopkins is doing here feels like part of a conversation, a way of seeing and making that keeps evolving.