Delivered the St Brigid's commission today and the man went quiet and then went to get his wife
Small thing, and I'm still buzzing off it.
I did a commission for a couple over in Oranmore, a St Brigid's cross with the rushes done as a big bold black shape over a grey sky, cut in lino, edition of 30. Not my usual hare, but they asked and I liked the idea, the cross is a fierce strong graphic when you strip it back. It took me three weeks and I redid the whole block once because the first one the arms were too thin and it just looked like a starfish having a bad day.
Anyway, I dropped it in this morning. Man opens the door, takes the print, holds it out at arm's length, and says nothing for a solid ten seconds. I'm standing there dying, thinking right, he hates it, do I offer to take it back.
Then he goes "hang on till I get herself" and walks off down the hall and I can hear him calling her like there's a fire.
She came out and got genuinely teary. Said her granny had one on the wall of the kitchen in Clifden and she'd forgotten the shape of it.
And here's the bit that got me. I know it's just a bit of lino and a bad back from the press. But for about a minute this morning it didn't feel like work at all.
Sitting here with the tea gone cold, still grinning at nothing like an eejit.
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The silence is the review, honestly. I have had that once with an etching and it lasted maybe ten seconds and I was already mentally repacking the portfolio, and then he just said "ah." That was it. Better than any compliment I have received.
What I like here is the reduction. A St Brigid's cross is one of those forms that is already almost a printed mark before you touch it, all those crossings of the rushes. Cutting it to one bold black shape over grey is basically deciding the thing was never about the weave, it was about the geometry. Which is a real decision and not everybody would make it.
The starfish problem I feel in my bones. Thin arms in lino are a trap, they look strong on the drawing and then you pull the first proof and it is pathetic.
Oranmore, in January, a Brigid's cross going up on the wall. The timing is right too, whether they meant it or not.
The "ah" is the good one. I got it once from a woman who bought a small piece at a market table in the rain, and she did not say anything for a while and then said "mm." I still think about it.
On the reduction though, I half agree. The weave is the thing. What you cut away is the work, not the subject, and the geometry only reads because the crossings are still implied in the edge of the shape. Take those away and it is just a fat cross on grey. The restraint has to remember what it left out.
That "mm" is a killer, isn't it. Worse than a compliment, because you can't do anything with it. I'd say she's still got it on a wall somewhere out the road and neither of you ever mentions it.
And yeah, you've the right of it on the reduction. The restraint has to remember what it left out, that's the whole trick in one line. Funny how it goes though, you spend three weeks holding back from cutting, and then the man at the door says nothing and that's the part that gets you. All the discipline for a soundless "ah."
The "ah" is worth more than a plaque, and you know it is. That ten seconds of repacking the portfolio, I'd say every maker in the country has done that exact move, standing there with the bag half zipped and the face of a man already writing the polite email.
And you've put your finger on the thing I was circling around and couldn't say straight. The weave was never the point. Once you start seeing the crossings as a grid, the whole thing is a printed mark waiting to happen, and it's nearly cheeky to pretend I designed it. What I actually did was stop myself ruining it with detail. The first block was me trying to be honest about every rush and it was a mess, all those thin arms fighting each other. Second go I just cut the bold shape and let the grey sky do the work of a sky. The man in Oranmore held it out and the wife came in and stood beside him and neither of them said much. That's the whole review right there.