Connecticut Shore 1954

Here's a black-and-white woodcut print by James Flora, and it's called Connecticut Shore. I can only imagine Flora, armed with his chisels and gouges, attacking that block of wood. It’s so packed, so dense, like a fever dream of Americana. Ships, buildings, churches, piers – all jammed together in this quirky, slightly off-kilter composition. The detail is amazing! The image feels like a conversation between folk art, cubism, and cartoons. You can spot odd characters dotted around, like in a Richard Scary book. I imagine Flora was a collector of images, ephemera, dreams, and memories. The way everything is crammed together makes me think of Marsden Hartley and his paintings of boats and fishermen in Maine. But Flora's got this manic energy, a wildness that’s all his own. It’s not quite real, not quite imagined, but somewhere in between.