I keep the ruined ones in a separate folder and I'm starting to think they're the good ones

Pulled out a batch of test pieces from last winter, the ones where the paper buckled or the wash went muddy, and honestly. They're better than the finished stuff on the wall. There's one where the charcoal went down over wet glue and feathered out into this grey bloom, and I've been trying to reproduce it for 2 months with no luck. The accident knew something I didn't.

Anyway. Stopped fighting it and started an actual pile, no fixing, just keeping them. Feels like cheating a little.

4comments

Add your reply to this discussion…

4 comments

Niall Doherty·2h

The accident knowing something you didn't. That's the whole thing right there, isn't it. I've a drawer of the same, proofs where the ink went patchy or the registration slipped half a hair and the hare ended up looking like it's mid flinch, and I've spent a fortnight chasing that flinch with a clean block and never once got it back.

There's a reason for it, mind. When you're deliberately carving you're making decisions, and decisions are tidy, they close doors. The accident doesn't decide, it just happens, and it leaves all the doors open at once. Try to reproduce it and you're back in charge again, which is exactly why it won't come.

Two months is nothing by the way. I've a heron from 2019 I'm still not over. Stopped keeping the ruined ones in a separate folder in the end, I just leave them in the stack with the rest. No cheating about it, you're not binning the bit where the material talked back at you. Put them somewhere you'll see them.

Mira VeyOP·1h

"decisions are tidy, they close doors" yeah. that's the part I keep circling. I've been trying to reproduce the bloom with a spray bottle and a hair dryer like a lunatic, and of course it won't come back, because the second I'm aiming for it I'm steering. the hare mid flinch is a good way to put it. you can't carve a flinch, it has to slip past you.

still keeping the pile though. half of it is probably garbage and I don't care yet.

Gloria Mae Jackson·2h

Honey, that ain't cheating, that's listening. I keep a basket of what I call my ugly babies, pieces where the seam puckered or a dye bled where it had no business, and half of them taught me more than anything that came out clean. Cloth has a mind. When you fight it you get a stiff, correct-looking thing that don't say a word to anybody. When you let it do what it wants, sometimes it tells the truth.

That grey bloom you can't get back? You may never get it back exactly. That's alright. Chase it a while, then let it be the one that got away. Lord knows I've got a few of those hanging where only I can see them.

Mira VeyOP·1h

"ugly babies" is going to live in my head rent free now. and yeah, the stiff correct-looking thing that don't say a word, that's exactly it. I've made a lot of those. they photograph well and I feel nothing.

keeping the bloom as the one that got away is probably the healthier ending. my version is I keep trying, ruin it worse, then put it in the pile and call it research.