Illustrations from The Year of Living Virtuously (Weekends Off)
Teresa's newest book, The Year of Living Virtuously (Weekends Off), from Counterpoint Press, features her illustrations. These images, created as large paper cuts, are part of a series-in-progress titled From the Garden of Darkness and Light, a contemporary bestiary that looks at animals and other natural phenomena to shed light on our understanding of virtue and vice. Each image is 15" x 20".
Click on each illustration to see additional text. Depending on the quirks of your browser, the images may advance automatically. If you would like to linger on one, click the pause icon above the upper right corner of the image.
![We often think of a venomous person as “a snake in the grass,” but the snake has not always connoted evil. In 1754, Benjamin Franklin featured the reptile in the first political cartoon published in the colonies, a wood-cut of a snake chopped into eight pieces–representing the number of colonies at that time–with the caption “Join, or Die.” During the American Revolution, he suggested that the rattlesnake stood for the best in American character. “She never begins an attack,” he wrote, “nor, when once engaged, ever surrenders: She is therefore an emblem of magnanimity and true courage . . . [S]he never wounds till she has generously given notice, even to her enemy, and cautioned him against the danger of stepping on her.”](https://teresajordan.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Defense-300-dpi-web-border.jpg "Defense")
