2024 spitzack barbara dead or alive vitos cat cougar woodcut print woodblock mokuhanga seattle art artist relief printmaking lino linocut

This 2024 print references Vito's, a Seattle restaurant, alongside a cat-cougar subject and the wanted-poster phrasing 'dead or alive.' The composition appears to operate as a narrative or character portrait rooted in specific Seattle cultural landmarks. The cat-to-cougar progression suggests Spitzack is working with scale or transformation imagery, the domestic cat shading toward its larger Pacific Northwest relative. As a mokuhanga work, the print would be produced through carved cherrywood or shina blocks inked with rice-paste-bound pigments and impressed by hand baren onto washi paper, a process that distinguishes mokuhanga from the oil-based linocuts the catalog also lists. The wanted-poster framing connects the print to American vernacular graphic traditions — saloon ephemera, Western iconography — translated into Japanese technique. This kind of cultural recombination characterizes Spitzack's 2024 output and the broader contemporary American mokuhanga movement, where Japanese craft methods carry distinctly local subject matter.