Back in the early two thousands, my mother, Bernice Morgan, asked if I would illustrate a novella she was thinking about writing. Dragon’s Song, was eventually published as a limited edition fine art letterpress chapbook by Running the Goat Books and Broadsides. The novella describes a woman living in Coley’s Point, Newfoundland. While she mourns the loss of her husband, she thinks back to their time as naive missionaries in revolutionary China and the tragic event that happened to them in that country. My illustrations were primarily Newfoundland images, but my compositions were inspired by Asian art. Up to this time I had been working with etchings but, having learned woodblock engraving for this project, that print form became my dominant medium. Here are some of my first woodblocks, which I created for Dragon Song, starting with my very first woodblock, the teacup:

I had learned woodblock engraving at a letterpress workshop (Wayzgoose) organized by the wonderful book artist, Tara Bryan, and her friend and the Running the Goat publisher, Marnie Parsons. “Room, Room” (22″ x 16″) the image at the top of this page, combines the text from the traditional Mummers’ play with a woodblock engraving about the contemporary Mummers’ parade. I printed this poster on a Chandler and Price letterpress on Okawara paper, in Century headline typeface. I typeset the text and printed this during a residency at Port Union’s amazing treasure, the Coaker Foundation’s Advocate Press.

During a residency at the Quidi Vidi Village Artisans Studios, I started creating woodblock engravings on cherry and maple while maintaining the original shape of the tree. The Craft Council of Newfoundland & Labrador (CCNL) generously extended my one-year residency to eighteen months, after which I moved “Morgan’s Printing/Art” back into my basement studio. A limited number of my woodblocks are available at the CCNL’s St. John’s store “The Pantry” and in November 2023, my booth in the CCNL’s Christmas craft fair included a new series of woodblock prints based on Edith Watson’s photographs of women working in Atlantic Canada and Quebec in the 1890’s. (See the girl carrying water, below.)

These woodblocks were originally created to be part of my immersive book. See the page “Reframing the Grimm” on this website for more details.

–Jennifer Morgan, January 2024