CULLOM GALLERY | JAPANESE PRINTS - UKIYO-E, SOSAKU HANGA, MOKU HANGA | SEATTLE | BETH CULLOM 

Moku Hanga: Annie Bissett

John Alden, 1621 & Priscilla Mullins, 1621.

by Annie Bissett (b. 1955)
Self-carved and self-printed moku hanga (Japanese woodblock print)
Pencil monogram, title, date, and edition in the margin.
Date: 2009
Edition: 15
Printed with 4 carved blocks and 4 hand-rubbed color layers each
Paper size: 8 x 6 inches; image size: 5-3/4 x 4-5/8 inches
$210.

"William Bradford described 22-year-old John Alden as "a hopfull yong man, [who] was much desired." I guess he was a hunk. Alden also did some hunting and trapping in Maine, so I pictured him wearing an LL Bean style plaid hunting jacket. Most of the people in that time period had lice and fleas, thus John Alden was a hunk but there were lice in his hair.

John's wife, Priscilla Mullins, was 16 when the Mayflower arrived. She was the only member of her family who survived the first winter, so I chose to depict her in her private grief. I applied 21st century notions of anglo female beauty to the picture and used "memento mori" imagery from colonial American sources to decorate the corners of the piece." Annie Bissett