Cakeasaurus, the gleefully cake-thieving, sweet-sneaking monster brainchild of Ann Arbor printmaker/storyteller Marian Short, will be lurking on the walls and in the halls of the Taubman Health Center's North Lobby from now until June 11, 2017. Cakeasaurus: Scenes From a Picture Book is curated by Gifts of Art, a program designed to bring art and music to patients, visitors and staff in the University of Michigan Health System.

Amusingly paired with this series of Cakeasaurus prints are the sweet yet dangerous-looking glass confections of Janet Kelman. A combination of pate de verre, slumped and sheet glass, the sugary looking cupcakes and gateaux look delicious, but engender feelings of both attraction and dismay at the thought of biting into one of these glossy but inedible desserts. Cakeasaurus beware!

The (mostly) wood block prints in Cakeasaurus: Scenes From a Picture Book describe the exploits of the cake-stealing monster through its 8-year development from inception into what Short hopes will soon become a children’s book. They track the artist’s process as she refines, rethinks, and develops the story visually and narratively. Short is generous and humorous in her explanations of her creative process and thoughtfully provides several large explanatory prints, visually satisfying in their own right, to accompany the smaller artworks.

Nefarious yet oddly relatable (who doesn't harbor a bit of cake monster within?) Short’s Cakeasaurus steals and eats cake after luscious cake in a town very much like our own, experiencing along the way not one moment of remorse. His depredations alarm residents who institute a neighborhood cake watch to no avail, until the monster is caught in the act late one night by brave young birthday boy Quimby. The intrepid 5-year-old shows the thief the error of his ways and points him in a better direction. The story suggests that while adults may be well-meaning, the reform of Cakeasaurus calls for the resourcefulness of a plucky and wise young hero.

"The interplay of text and image in my work reflects my lifelong enthusiasm for picture books," said Short. The artist, a native of Philadelphia, is a graduate of Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where she studied creative writing and literature. She discovered wood-block printing after moving to the Midwest when she took a course at the Ann Arbor Art Center in 1999. She was immediately drawn to the possibilities inherent in combining text and image on the page, though the idea of creating books didn’t occur to her immediately. She also found she enjoyed the concrete physical nature of the carving process, which was so different from her desk job at the time, at Borders Books.

Short describes her creative process as one in which “some little creature comes along that has a thought attached and it just springs into my head.” From there, she works to create a composition on paper, which she finds to be the most creatively taxing aspect of the process. When she is satisfied with the layout, she transfers it to a woodblock for cutting. She maintains that the carving process itself is deeply satisfying and relaxing. She adds that she is able to pick up a block and work productively for short periods at a time, a schedule made necessary by her other current job as the mother of a two-year-old daughter.

Fans of Marian Short’s fanciful creatures will soon have yet another reason to rejoice. The Ann Arbor District Library has acquired seven of her prints, which will soon be available to the Ann Arbor Public Library’s patrons through AADL’s Art Print collection. The prints feature a variety of compositions (not all of which are Cakeasaurus-related). Short also deals in star-gazing llamas, sinister geese, and bandit raccoons, all of whom are represented in the recently acquired collection.

The AADL Art Print collection, which is comprised of over 700 professionally framed posters, prints, and fine-art reproductions, has been in existence for over 20 years and is located at the downtown branch, but library patrons can browse for pictures online and pick them up at their local branch. Up to three artworks can be checked out at a time for eight weeks. The print loans cannot be renewed in consecutive weeks, but if library members find they want Marian Short’s various creatures of imagination permanently, her reasonably priced prints can be purchased through Etsy.

K.A. Letts is an artist and art blogger. She has shown her work regionally and nationally and in 2015 won the Toledo Federation of Art Societies Purchase Award while participating in the TAAE95 Exhibit at the Toledo Museum of Art. You can find more of her work at RustbeltArts.com.

For more information about Gifts of Art, visit http://www.med.umich.edu/goa/.