Neal Harrington.
A Russellville printmaker who carves Ozarks folklore and American roots music into bold black-and-white woodcuts
A Russellville printmaker who carves Ozarks folklore and American roots music into bold black-and-white woodcuts
This month’s Postcard Edition features Russellville printmaker Neal Harrington. If you’re on the Melissa’s Mail Club list, his linoleum cut print is the one on your November postcard. Here’s more about Neal, how he makes his work, and the piece we chose.
Starting out in Rapid City
Neal grew up in Rapid City, South Dakota, near Mount Rushmore. He has said he couldn’t wait to leave, though he came to appreciate the place later. He studied drawing and painting at the University of South Dakota and earned a B.F.A. in 1998. It was in an art class there that he met his wife, Tammy, who is also an artist and professor.
He went on to Wichita State University to keep painting, but it didn’t click. Switching to printmaking changed everything, and he earned his M.F.A. in 2001. He calls that switch “the best thing that ever happened to me creatively and professionally.”
Since 2001 he has been a Professor of Art at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, where he teaches figure drawing, printmaking and illustration and directs the Norman Hall Gallery. His prints have been shown across the United States and have won awards including two Delta Awards from the Arkansas Arts Center, the 2017 Beaux Arts Award from the River Valley Arts Center and honors from the Boston Printmakers Biennial and the Pacific States Biennial. His work is held in collections including the Historic Arkansas Museum, the Bradbury Art Museum at Arkansas State University, the Maryhill Museum in Washington State and the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith. He is represented by M2 Gallery in Little Rock.
The woodcut as storytelling
For Neal, printmaking is the main way he explores ideas. He works mostly in relief, carving woodcuts and linocuts, and likes that a block can be carved at a kitchen table without chemicals or special ventilation. Each print is planned in detail in sketchbooks before he picks up a tool. He sometimes adds India ink washes, a technique he learned as an undergraduate, to bring back some of the spontaneity he enjoyed in painting. His editions stay small, and he usually keeps one print from each.
The stories come from American roots music, folklore and classical myth. A boyhood interest in guitar led him to the blues, which he describes as “wonderfully complex and at the same time unbelievably simple.” After moving south, he grew curious about the region’s music, rituals and traditions, especially in the Delta. His images mix moonshine, spirits and rural Gothic mystery with retellings of old myths, like Hickarus, a backwoods take on Icarus. His Bootlegger’s Ballad series follows a recurring figure he describes as a timeless Ozarks adventurer, an everyman rather than a self-portrait.
His influences include black-and-white comics, printmakers like Lynd Ward and Arkansas artist Warren Criswell, and that shows in the strong contrast of his work. A critic once compared him to Thomas Hart Benton and Rockwell Kent while noting that his style is distinctly his own. In 2025, his triptych of large woodcuts, Arkansas As Home, was permanently installed at the Little Rock airport through the Art at the Airport Program.
“Printmaking was the best thing that ever happened to me creatively and professionally.”Neal Harrington
About the November postcard
Linoleum cut, 24" x 18", 2026
A big, crested bird rises with its beak open and its wings spread wide, circled by a thin crescent moon. Through the curve of that moon you can see a small cabin, its steps leading up to the porch, tucked into the trees. Wind and rain streak across the sky, and every inch of the print is alive with carved lines, feathers and swirling branches.
The title is the biggest clue. “Lord God Bird” is an old nickname for the ivory-billed woodpecker, a giant bird of the Southern bottomland forests that many people believe is gone for good. It’s a famous bit of Arkansas lore, thanks to reported sightings in the state’s Big Woods in the early 2000s. Neal calls this one a ghost, so is the bird a memory, a visitor, or something the person in the cabin only imagines? He leaves that up to you.
I chose it for November because it feels like the season: shorter days, a low moon and a good story to tell by the porch light. It’s also brand new, carved this year, so you’re getting a very fresh look at what Neal is making right now.
Neal doesn’t explain his images. Symbols, composition and titles give you clues, and he encourages you to make up your own story. So take a look at your postcard and decide what happens next.
See more of Neal’s work
You can browse Neal’s prints, drawings, graphic novels and series like Bootlegger’s Ballad and Hard Travelin’ Man at nealharrington.com.
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The Postcard Edition is brought to you by Melissa Cowper-Smith, Keller Williams Realty.
This month is brought to you by:
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Donation byMelissa Clark Bacon
Melissa’s Mail Club
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