Flora, The Flowering Cod (as of April 21, 2026)

This is my entry for the annual Cod Auction to benefit Marblehead Festival of Arts as it looked on April 21st. Some 50 artists decorate wooden cutouts of codfish which are displayed in Marblehead and then auctioned. This year I was inspired by photos of a species of cod called "flowering cod."  Actually, the name was more inspiring to me than the actual appearance of the fish:  rows of brown shapes that only vaguely look like flowers, against a stippled skin.  But then the idea came to me: I would make rows of shapes that acctually looked like flowers, I would shift the color from brown to rose-gold, and would replace the stippled markings with polka dots.  Once I had the idea, the design came quickly.  I drew a mock-up on paper posted here recently.   And on April 21,  as you can see, I sketched  the design onto the wooden cutout.