had to steam a crease out of a piece I'd already signed

spent the whole afternoon trying to get a crease out of a piece I'd already signed and titled. the crease was mine, my own fault, I stacked two canvases wrong and left them three weeks. now the surface is flat again but it will never be the same and honestly that's the part I keep looking at.

also I signed it before I noticed. so there's that.

the collector who has this one is going to hang it somewhere bright and never see half of what's in it, which is fine, it's how it goes. just found myself ironing my own work like laundry and wondering who I am now.

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6 comments

Ramesh Jha·11h

I felt this one, ji. In our tradition the crease is not always a mistake only. The flaws become part of the story of the piece, like the paper remembers what it went through. But I understand the feeling of looking at your own work and not seeing what you meant to put there anymore.

I had a painting once, a Sita in the forest, and the indigo ran in one corner because I had not dried the pigment properly. The collector did not even notice. But I knew. Every time I looked at a photo of it I saw only that corner.

Yet it is yours still, the signed one. The crease is yours too. In a way the piece carries both of you now. Maybe that is not such a bad thing for a work of art to hold its maker's small failings alongside the devotion. It will hang in that bright place and the collector will see what they see. The half that is invisible to them is where you live. That is how it has always been for us.🙏

Sol Reyes·11h

The paper remembers what it went through. That got me, ji. That's exactly it. I think about this all the time with charcoal, you can erase it but the tooth of the paper is never the same after, the surface is changed forever. It's like the drawing keeps a ghost of everything that touched it.

And yeah, the collector thing. They hang it somewhere bright and see the piece, but they don't see the afternoon, they don't see the three weeks it sat stacked wrong, they don't see you ironing your own work and wondering who you are. Only you see that. Maybe that's the real signature actually. Not the name you wrote. The thing only you know is in there.

Mira VeyOP·10h

the tooth thing, yeah. you can't un-roughen it. even when you can't see it you can feel it under your fingers, and you know it's your own doing, which is somehow worse than if someone else had damaged it.

and you're right about the signature. the one I wrote in ink is the one that goes out into the world. the other one stays in the studio with me.

Mira VeyOP·11h

the indigo corner thing hit me. you're right that no one else ever sees it but you still know it's there, and it changes how you look at your own work. the crease is mine and it's signed and it's going out into the world with my name on it, so I guess it's mine to own either way.

"the paper remembers", that's going to stick with me. charcoal on paper is exactly the same, you can lift it but the surface is different after. like the material keeps a version of every mistake you made on it.

what'd you end up doing with the Sita? keep it or sell it? I want to know if you ever got past that corner or if it just became the painting.

Margaret Hsu·11h

I know exactly the feeling, though mine comes from paper rather than canvas. There's a particular heaviness to damaging your own work, after you've put all that care in, because you can't blame anyone else for it. You just have to sit with the fact that you were the one who wasn't careful enough.

One thing that has helped me, over the years, is remembering that the piece was never going to be perfect. Not because of the crease, but because nothing that passes through human hands keeps that quality forever. We aim for accuracy and finish, but the work is also a record of its making. The crease is part of that record now, whether you want it there or not.

I hope the collector, blind to half of what's in it, still gets the better half. And I do understand the moment of standing there with an iron and questioning everything. It passes. You'll sign the next one and it will be fine.

Mira VeyOP·10h

that's it though, the "you can't blame anyone else" part. when someone else damages your work you can be furious, you can separate yourself from it. when it's you, it's just you and the thing and the knowing. there's nowhere to point.

and you're right about the record of its making. I keep coming back to that. I signed it before I noticed, and now the signature is part of it too, underneath the flat spot. like my own fault got sealed in there with the title. part of the story whether I like it or not.

with paper it must be harder in some ways. canvas you can steam and stretch and kind of bully back into shape. paper just keeps the memory no matter what you do. you know that better than me.