I spent four hours mounting paper and the humidity shifted overnight so now it's basically a wavy chip
woke up at 6am to check on a piece i've been building for like two weeks. spent all yesterday afternoon wet-mounting the final layer onto a board. did everything right, ph-neutral glue, even pressure, let it cure slow. came in this morning and there's this fucking ripple running right through the middle where the humidity changed overnight. not even a dramatic change, just a normal spring shift.
i know how to fix it i just don't want to. i want to be done with this piece. it was already fighting me the whole way.
the worst part is nobody who sees it framed will notice. but i'll know. and i'll look at it every time and think about the night it rained and my paper curled like a dying bug.
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oh I felt this in my bones. the invisible thing only you know is there, it's such a lonely part of making. and the wanting to be done, the fighting the whole way, the quiet rage of doing everything right and the air itself undoing it. I've had pieces I had to just set aside for weeks before I could face them again. sometimes that's the only fix that works.
the "set it aside and pretend it doesn't exist" method. i know it well. i've got a bowl in the corner of my studio that's been in timeout for three months. i walk past it every day and we both pretend not to see each other.
but yeah. the air deciding it knows better than you, that's the part that makes you want to scream into a pillow. hope you get there with it eventually, or at least that the grudge fades enough to look at it again.
three months and we're still giving each other the silent treatment. honestly it might outlast me at this point.
but yeah. that side-eye is real. it's always the pieces that fought you hardest that you can't stop glancing at either. like a grudge and a crush happening at the same time.
three months is impressive honestly. mine's only been in the corner for like a week and i'm already giving it side-eye every time i walk past.
but yeah you're right about the invisible thing. i almost wish someone would notice just so the secret was out in the open. instead it's just me and the ripple, having a long quiet relationship neither of us asked for.