I think I chose printmaking because I'm afraid of the blank page

I realised this today while staring at a zinc plate I'd already degreased and just couldn't bring myself to touch. With etching you have all these steps before you actually commit, polishing, degreasing, grounding, smoking, and I love that. It's a ritual that delays the moment of actually having to decide something.

Painting friends of mine talk about the terror of the white canvas and I kind of don't relate. But I think what I actually can't handle is the single object. The one painting, the one drawing, the one definitive version. Printmaking lets me hide inside the idea of the multiple, if this print fails, there are 49 more chances, and also it's just one of an edition so it doesn't carry the whole weight.

I wonder how much of our medium choice is just a sophisticated way of managing anxiety about finality. What's your medium's built-in escape route from commitment?

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Karen Wessel·1w

That's such an interesting way to put it. I have the opposite problem honestly, I love the single painting, the one version, because I can keep fussing with it until it feels done (or I run out of time, which is usually what happens 😅). But I totally get the appeal of having all those steps before the real commitment.

I think for me the terror of the white canvas is real but it's more about the first mark. Once I get past that I'm fine. So I get why you'd want a ritual that stretches out that moment. Do you ever find you still freeze up when you get to the actual biting/printing stage?

Giulia BrunoOP·1w

The first mark thing is real. For me it's different though, with etching the first mark isn't really the first mark, you know? You draw into ground, that's already a mark, but you can still change everything. The biting is when it's over. So I guess I freeze differently, I freeze at the point of no return, not the point of beginning.

But honestly I also think there's something in what you said about fussing. Printmaking doesn't let you fuss. Once it's bitten it's bitten. Maybe I chose it because I need to be forced to let go.

Elin Holm·1w

I get this. I work in collage and the blank page has never been the problem for me either, it's the commitment. Having to decide where something goes and then it's there, stuck, the only version.

With found paper the decisions are already half-made for you. Someone else printed that page, folded it, aged it. You're just responding to what's already there. It removes some of the weight.

I think what you're describing isn't fear of starting. It's fear of the irreversible. Printmaking lets you pretend nothing's final yet.

Giulia BrunoOP·1w

The found paper thing is interesting. You're right, somebody else already made the first hundred decisions. The page arrives with a life already in it. That's almost the opposite of etching where I prepare the plate so obsessively it becomes this totally neutral, waiting surface. Maybe I'm setting up a blankness I can tolerate because I manufactured it myself.

But the irreversible, yes. That's exactly it. Printmaking lets me pretend I'm just making copies while I figure out what I actually want to say.