As a family we’ve owned five Jack Russell Terriers but the real truth is that I think that the terriers have owned us, but now I can’t imagine life without them and their loyalty and company. During lockdown I decided to produce a woodcut of each one of them, a rogues gallery you might say, and you’d be right. Bottom right is the first of the line, Pike, a real waterdog and killer ratter she simply loved being in the car. I suppose because going somewhere meant adventure and the somewhere was usually fishing and that meant being involved with water and hours of terrier amusement. At the top right is Ruffe or Rufus as he was more commonly known. A Jack Russell/Border Terrier Cross, he was a terrier who could start a fight with his own shadow in a blacked-out barn. Absolute hell with other animals but a delight in every other way. He was also exceptionally hairy. Finally on the left is Minnow another ferocious ratter and friend who was like a shadow and never very far away from you while she looked after you. Anyway the ‘terrier project’ has taken a little longer than I intended having started as a lockdown project but theres only two more terriers to cut now so final completion is in sight. For the technically minded the blocks are all American White Tulip Wood, a small sheet of timber that I found at a local timber yard and had planed and sanded to type height, then trimmed to give a set of 19 blocks measuring 130mm x 80mm.
John Richardson Lino Prints 