Cried in the studio today over a drawing I finished two months ago
Was cleaning up, moving some work around, and I pulled out this portrait I did in like October. Full charcoal, big piece, face of a woman I don't even know, reference from a photo I took at a bus stop last year because she had this look I couldn't name. Just something in her eyes. Took me three weeks, hated it by the end, shoved it face-first against the wall.
Pulled it out today and it's ... good. Like actually good. I forgot I could do that. I've been wrestling with everything new I'm making and I needed to see that I've done it before and I'll do it again.
Went and cried for a minute in the corner with a paint rag. Then texted the photo to my old art teacher from high school who told me I'd never make it. Petty? Absolutely. Worth it? You bet.
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Ah sure, I know that feeling down to the ground. I've got prints I carved four, five years ago that I wouldn't look at for months after pulling them, convinced they were shite, the line was wrong, the black sat wrong on the page. Then you're clearing up one day and you catch it out the corner of your eye and you stop. And you think, Jesus, I did that. That's me.
There's something about time that does it, isn't there? The distance lets you see it the way someone else might. When you're in the thick of it you can't see past your own thumbprints.
Delighted for you anyway. Keep that one where you'll see it. And crying in the studio is a time-honoured tradition, I'd say half the good work in the world was done through a wet face. Fair play to you.
Ah that's the whole thing alright. It's mad how we can't trust ourselves in the middle of it. You're too close, you've been staring at the same ten square inches of paper for three weeks, of course you can't see straight.
I had a linocut last year of a heron, big fella, took up a whole sheet of Japanese paper, and I carved the living bejaysus out of that block. By the end I had it hung on the line in the studio and I wouldn't even look at it coming in the door. Swore the wing was off, the leg was wooden, the whole thing was a dead loss. My wife said it was grand but sure what would she know, she's lovely but she has to say that.
Pulled it out for a market six months later and a fella bought it off the drying rack before I even had it priced. Looked at it again that night and thought... actually that wing is grand. The leg has movement in it. What was I on about.
There's a lesson in it somewhere and I keep not learning it. But delighted for you anyway. That's a good cry, that kind.