Exlibris of Kazakova 1974

Oleksandr Aksinin made this small print, *Exlibris of Kazakova*, using etching. You can see the marks of the needle, cutting into the plate, each one a tiny furrow holding the ink, now pressed onto the paper. Imagine Aksinin bent over the metal, meticulously hatching the lines that make up this whimsical scene: a flurry of cats caught inside an hourglass, time running out, or perhaps multiplying! The ink is dark, almost velvety, and the paper has a soft, textured feel. I wonder if Aksinin felt a bit like these cats, crammed into a space, wrestling with the constraints of the medium, the pressure of time. The composition is tight, almost claustrophobic, yet the cats themselves seem unconcerned, playful even. There's a sense of humor here, a lightness that belies the labor involved. It reminds me a little of Klee, or maybe Miró, that same playful line. Artists, we're all just scratching away, trying to make sense of the world, one line, one cat, one print at a time.