Artwork description:

Who but god Almighty can stir up the sea to a storm or lift an enormous ship clean out of the water? My answer would be – a little child. This print is based upon a model of the passenger liner 'Mauretania', produced by toy makers Marklin, in the years before the First World War. The original ship was built in 1906 and captured the public's imagination as the fastest and largest liner of its' day. Marklin's model was 21½ inches long – say the distance across a broad man's shoulders, and would have seemed quite magnificent in the tiny hands of a child!

In the making of this print I was minded of a song by the inventive rock band 'Family' (1966-1973) titled 'Processions'. Part of the lyric runs:

Sailing a toy boat in a rock pool
Thinking that it could be
The Queen Mary, passing the Cape Horn tip
Something majestic, sailing world wide seas
Attention please, I'm the captain of your ship!

Very few of those model ships, turned out by mostly German manufacturers, have made it to the present day. They were so wonderful and used so much that they were loved to destruction. Objects, places, pets, may all be loved to destruction. However, people cannot be loved to destruction, and the more someone is loved the stronger they become.

This print is pulled from engravings cut out of sheets of rubber, and is a variation of letterpress printing. After removal of areas that are to be left as white paper, the remaining rubber is rolled up with ink and pressed to paper. The total number of prints in this case is closed at four and the printing plates discarded.

The print comprises oil-based ink on high quality acid free paper and should present no keeping difficulties. The image measures 7x8½ inches on a 10x12 inch sheet and will fit straight into a standard 10x12 inch frame.

Materials used:

oil-based printing inks, Hahnemuhle etching paper 300gsm

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