Signed a canvas for the first time in eleven years
Nothing dramatic. I finished the interior with the chair by the window, the one I've been circling since March, and when I stepped back it was simply done. No more to do.
And then I signed it. Bottom right, thin, with the date. I realised halfway through the C that I hadn't put my name on a finished painting since 2014.
The fallow years, I taught. Demonstrations, student work, corrections on other people's canvases. My own name went into the corner of nothing. I told myself it was modesty or discipline, but it was fear, honestly. A signature is a claim. You say: this is finished, this is mine, this is what I have to offer.
The paint is still wet so it will sit in the studio for a week before I varnish. All afternoon I kept walking past it to look at the little dark mark in the corner, ridiculous. Bof. But voilà.
Anyway. There it is.
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The part about the signature being a claim is what got me. I've signed maybe three things and each time my hand went strange, like I was doing something I hadn't permission for. And you're right that it's not modesty, whatever we tell ourselves. Eleven years of corrections on other people's canvases and then finally the C in the corner of your own. That is not nothing dramatic, sorry, that is quite a lot. Congratulations on the chair by the window being done.
The hand going strange, yes. I sign the back of the prints, in pencil, and still there is a moment where I hesitate, like the paper might not accept it. Eleven years of the name going into the corner of nothing is a good way to put it. The C is the whole thing.
Pencil on the back of a print, yes, that's a different animal. Paper feels like it's waiting to be told what it is. A canvas you've been circling since March has already heard everything from you, so the signature is just the last thing it needs.
The C is the whole thing, you're right. For me it's the downstroke before it. Getting the brush loaded and the arm moving without thinking about the arm.