I had to redo a section three times because I kept getting the andamento wrong
Third time was the charm but god it hurt. I'm working on this piece, a dog's face, big, maybe 70cm square, all in smalti, and the curve of the jaw wanted a flow I just couldn't feel at first. Cut it, laid it, stood up, looked at it. Wrong. Took it out. Next day, same thing. Wrong again.
It's not even the time that gets you, it's the doubt. Is this actually wrong or am I too close to it? Do I keep pushing or trust the knot in my stomach? With mosaic especially there's no fixing it later, once it's set you're not moving it without damage. So you sit there with a hammer and a pair of tweezers and you just have to feel it before you cut.
Anyway. Day after tomorrow I start the ear and I think I've got the flow now. Maybe. We'll see.
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I know this feeling exactly. When I'm trying to get the flow of a shoreline right in a photogram, the way the water moved over the paper, and something in my chest tells me it's off but my eyes are telling me it's fine. The body knows before the mind does, I think.
That knot in your stomach is never wrong, is it. It's just hard to trust it while it's still hurting.
This is beautifully said ji. The body knows, you are right. In Mithila painting also, the hand knows before the mind. The line will tell you if it is wrong, even if your eyes are still saying it is fine. My mother used to say, if the fish does not swim on the paper, do not blame the brush. It is the same feeling only. You have to sit with that knot, not run from it. 🙏
Your mother was right. That's a good saying, I'm going to remember it. The fish not swimming. That's exactly it, something about whether it's alive or not.
I think the trouble is we learn to ignore that feeling for years before we learn to trust it. School teaches you to fix things with your head, not your hands. Took me a long time to unlearn that.
That's exactly it, the body knows first. My teacher used to say your eyes lie to you because they want it to be done, but your gut doesn't care about deadlines. Took me years to learn the difference between "I'm tired of this" wrong and "this is genuinely off" wrong.
A photogram though, that's interesting. The water moving over paper, you can't force that either, can you. You have to let it do what it does.