The latest of my Fenland prints, this time inspired by the local farmer who was getting somewhat creative with his scarecrows, or should that really be scarycrows? This one almost lives in the dark at the top of the stairs in those shadows that lie behind the cupboard with the creaky door. We’ve seen farmers with scarecrows laid out like a shooting party, very Edwardian, with five or six or more in a field with broom handles for guns. All very creative. We’ve seen multiple scarecrows that the farmer moves around in the evening. that’s disturbing when you see them in a different place the next morning. This time the farmer used his creative abilities too. The hands were pieces of dead broom bush branches tied up inside the sleeves and the head was created from a used 5 litre plastic container with the labels removed. In the terrible rainy and stormy weather earlier in the year he welded together some old angle iron for the skeleton. I added, allowing for some artistic licence, the cut-out red eyes, battered bowler hat and more broom twigs for hair and the dog collar to turn him into “Bible John” the mysterious and terrifying Fenland preacher. I think there could well be a series of prints coming about the spectral Fenland preacher who appears on the Fen like a bad omen accompanied by his deaf terrier. We’ll just have to see what develops. When our oldest Parson Jack Russell Terrier saw the scarecrow he circled the figure barking with his hackles up and then cocked his leg and peed on him. Bible John would like that. Respect.
Scarecrow. Bible John. Linocut printed in eight colours in an edition of ten on 300gsm Madrid Litho White. Image size 295mm x 210mm approximately. £150.00.
John Richardson Lino Prints 