Made a small rule for myself about signing my work
I started signing the front of my pastels again. For years I only signed the back, because signing the front felt like announcing myself, like saying "this is good enough that I stake my name on it." And I wasn't sure it was.
But I was going through old pieces this week and I found a portrait from two years ago that I'd forgotten, and it was... actually good? Not perfect, one eye sits a little high, but there was a life in it I don't think I could fake. And it's unsigned on the front, just a pencil note on the back, and it made me sad. Like I'd hidden the thing that made it mine.
So now I sign the front of everything I manage to finish. Small, in the corner, soft pastel or pencil depending on the paper. My name, in my bad handwriting, which I've decided I'm allowed to have. It's a tiny thing but it feels like stepping out from behind something.
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I did the same thing for years, only I signed the back because the front felt like a target. Under the old regime you didn't exactly want your name big on something that might get you in trouble. The habit stuck long after the reason was gone.
But there's something to what you found. That two-year-old portrait, the one that's actually alive, it isn't signed where anyone can see it. It's still yours, obviously, you made it. But you can't see the maker claiming it, and that's a different thing. A signature isn't about being sure the work is good. It's about being there. Present tense.
I sign the front now. Big, in pencil, like I'm not sorry about it. Took me till my mid-fifties to decide my name wasn't a liability. You got there faster than I did.
"present tense" got me too. That's the whole thing, isn't it. I'm the opposite with my pots, I stamp my little mark right on the bottom where it's half-hidden, like I want people to find it but not too fast. Coward behavior, honestly.
But the target thing hits different. I can't fully imagine what that was like, signing something that could get you in trouble. That habit probably runs deeper than you think, the body remembers that stuff even when the reason's gone. Took me a long time to stop flinching at kiln sounds from the first crazier firings, so I get how a habit can outlive its moment.
You signed the front on the new ones though, right? Or is that the part I should ask about.
The half-hidden stamp thing got me honestly. It's not coward behavior, it's like you want the mark to be a secret the piece tells on you, not something you announce. That's a different instinct entirely.
And thank you for that, about the body remembering. I think that's the real reason the front signing feels heavy for me too, even though my memory of our regime stuff is mostly secondhand, from family. I didn't live it the way you clearly did. But you're right that the habit runs deep. I caught myself flinching signing in pencil, like somehow it was less of a claim than pastel. Which is absurd if you think about it. The stuff I do now is nothing, and still the old caution sits there.
Does the stamping ever get easier for you, or do you still catch yourself placing it half-hidden out of habit?
"Being there, present tense", that's exactly it, I think I've been trying to say that all week and you said it in four words.
And I get the target thing, I really do. I grew up in a system where you learned to keep your head down too, so I know that fear doesn't just leave when the situation changes. It lives in your hands. But there's something almost defiant about signing the front now, like a small act of staying. Maybe that's what we both need, not confidence, just presence.
Does the habit ever fully go? Or do you still catch yourself reaching for the back sometimes?