Friend, Chris Cavanaugh and I were having an online discussion of graphic symbols and I had just printed three rabbits joined by three ears. And he asked about three fishes with one head. I was only vaguely aware of this symbol. I knew it was old but I didn’t know the origin story.

Turns out it is very old and of very different origins, all in the old world. But in the 1960s, Allen Ginsberg adopted the three fish/one head symbol as referring to him. Kind of like a logo, or symbol of him and his art. Cool.

SO, I carved it in wood once and printed. I didn’t like the design. Almost a copy of an image of an ancient clay vessel. So I tried to tweak the plate about three times. I finally gave up. I could not get the print right on the wood block.

I reduced its size, carved it in lino, took out this figure of an old Asian building, replaced it with a representation of a lotus flower, moved the double yin/yang symbols. Added 12 ordinals and a little twist to the outer circle. And removed any sign of the ancient vessel.

Printed one color and hand painted the dots and eye. There are actually two versions. One with yellow and the actual run with orange. Only 9 copies of this run.

After printing, I added my printer’s “chop.” That, too, is like a logo for a print maker.

I put one on the wall. I sent another to Chris Cavanaugh, the muse on this project and one more to a Ginsberg fan who has taught me more than one thing in life. Six left if you are interested.