A Second Chance

Oil-based Ink on 11x14" Stonehenge paper.  Color area is 9x12".  Slight variations between prints in edition (alignment).  This print has a tack to the surface versus smooth.  The tacky surface does not affect it visually but I recommend taking it out of the plastic and putting it in a frame after arrival.

Story behind the Print:

This linocut print is based off of a real sunflower that grew in my yard in 2022.  During the spring of 2022, my husband and I kept a bucket of bird seed in the garage to refill our bird feeder as needed.  However, the lid was not tight and bugs eventually burrowed holes throughout much of the seed.  I put the bucket on the side of the house to see if the birds or squirrels would eat the leftover “good” seeds.  No animal would touch the seed!

Before throwing it all in the trash, I looked down and picked out a few sunflower seeds.  I pushed those few seeds into the dirt near our water downspout.  Nothing seemed to grow in this soil anyway.  I couldn’t help but hope that maybe…just maybe…the seed would grow.

By June of 2022, I had not one but several beautiful sunflowers growing in the dirt that wouldn’t grow anything.  The birds came back to feast on the new sunflower seeds that had grown from the “untouchable” seeds.  It is amazing how a little bit of hope and faith brought about something so beautiful.