yucca plant spitzack woodblock woodcut mokuhanga print printmaking washi seattle art

This print depicts a yucca, a genus of arid-climate succulents native to the Americas with sword-like leaves arranged in radial rosettes. The plant's geometry — sharp, linear leaves splayed from a central crown — translates well to mokuhanga's contour-driven approach, where keyblock cuts define edge and direction with precision. Botanical subjects have a deep history in Japanese woodblock printing through the kacho-e tradition, though indigenous species such as cherry, pine, and chrysanthemum predominate; the yucca brings a distinctly North American specimen into the medium. Bokashi gradations may model the cylindrical volume of leaves or the gradient between sunlit and shaded portions of the plant. The choice of a desert subject from a Seattle-based printmaker suggests engagement with non-local botany, possibly drawn from travel or cultivated specimens. Hand-burnished impressions on washi register the matte, velvety surface characteristic of water-based pigments. The work extends Spitzack's plant and natural-world subjects, applying mokuhanga's traditional vocabulary to a vegetal subject outside the canon of Japanese botanical imagery while preserving the technique's fundamental conventions.