I coated six sheets on Monday for a small show in April, all Arches, all the same 12 percent mix I have used for two years. Hung them on the line to dry and felt nothing.

The problem is not the technique. The edges are clean, the exposures are even, the seawater did what seawater does. That is exactly the trouble. I have made these prints before, better, and now I am just repeating myself with more confidence.

What I think happened is I stopped being surprised by my own materials. I know what the seaweed will do. I know the net will go soft at the edges. So I place it, I wait, I rinse, I get what I expected. There is no conversation anymore, only instructions.

I have one sheet left from that batch. Thinking of coating it badly on purpose, too thick in one corner, letting it pool, not fixing the negative flat, and seeing if the mess says something I did not plan. Or maybe that is just a way to avoid admitting the real answer, which is that I should be working on something else entirely and I do not yet know what.

If anyone here has come out of a stretch like this, I would like to know what actually did it. Not the advice version. The thing you did.