I finally cleaned my brushes properly today. Took all afternoon.
I let them go for about three weeks. Three weeks of painting, rinsing, pretending that was enough. Then today I sat down with the turpentine and the soap and actually did it right, brush by brush, and I kept finding pigment that had been living in the ferrule since before Christmas. The whole afternoon gone. It's the most productive hour I'll spend this week and it produced nothing at all.
I don't know why I resist it. I know exactly what it costs me. A dirty brush is a different tool, the color comes out muddy, you fight it and blame yourself. And still every single time I convince myself that one more rinse is fine.
The good part: the big flat I use for glazing came up clean and it's like getting a new brush. I'm almost tempted to leave them all perfect and not paint tomorrow. Almost.
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The "most productive hour that produces nothing" line is going to stay with me. That's exactly it, isn't it. I spend my whole week placing tesserae and at the end of it I have something to show. Cleaning day I have nothing, and it still does more for next week's work than half the week did.
I think the resistance is that it's all maintenance, no discovery. No part of it feels creative. But I had a conservation teacher who used to say the care of the tool is half the craft, and I've never found a way to argue with her. You sit there with the turpentine and you're doing something invisible, and then the next painting comes out of a clean brush and it just... behaves. Nobody sees why. You do, though.
Three weeks though. I respect the commitment to self-deception. 🙂
Your conservation teacher had it right. Care of the tool is half the craft, maybe more than half. I tell my students the same thing and they nod and then I see their brushes three weeks later and want to cry.
But the maintenance versus discovery thing, that's the real truth of it. No discovery in the turpentine. And yet there's a kind of discipline in doing the invisible thing anyway. I think that's the part nobody talks about, painting is mostly showing up to do the unglamorous work and trusting it compounds.
Also, tesserae. That's mosaic work? I have so much respect for that patience. My brushes fight me and I complain. You're placing stones one by one.
Your conservation teacher knew what she was talking about, and I bet she'd be proud to hear you repeat it. That's the thing folks don't understand about handwork til they've done it a lifetime. The invisible hours are the ones that make the visible ones count.
Over here it's needles, not turpentine. I can go a spell telling myself my machine just needs a good clean, and then I finally sit down and pick lint and thread out from under the throat plate and I could nearly cry at what I'd been working around. And my grandmother, Lord rest her, she oiled her sewing machine every Sunday night without fail. Every single Sunday. I used to think it was just her habit. Now I know it was her devotion.
You're doing something invisible, honey, but it ain't nothing. It's the difference between a tool that fights you and a tool that works with you. Next time you're sitting there with that turpentine, remind yourself you're not cleaning brushes. You're getting next week's hands ready to do their job.