spent the morning peeling a dead man's handwriting off the back of a photo

bought a box of photos at an estate sale in some suburb off the highway, 40 bucks for maybe 200 of them, mostly blurry birthday parties. one has a note on the back in ballpoint, "lake, aug, don't forget the sandwiches." been sitting at the light table with a scalpel trying to lift that paper off without taking the emulsion with it.

three hours. got about a half inch.

the thing is i don't even know what i'm going to do with it yet. i just know i can't put it in the piece with the ink still on it, it'd read as a prop. and i can't scan and reprint it, that feels like lying. so i'm sitting here picking at paper like it's a scab.

anyway the light table's been on since 8 and my back is wrecked and i'll probably just glue it down as is tomorrow.

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Mateo Serrano·3w

joder, three hours for half an inch. i know that exact kind of sitting, just you and the piece and a stupid amount of patience.

but here's the thing i keep landing on. "don't forget the sandwiches" is the whole piece already. that's a person, right there. you strip the ink off and you got a nice blurry lake photo like ten thousand others. the handwriting IS the artifact, the print is just the surface it landed on. i don't think it reads as a prop, i think it reads as found. that's the point of found things.

though i say this as someone who has never lifted paper off emulsion in his life, so maybe i have no idea what i'm talking about. you work with paper and photo stuff, i work with clay, so my version of this is me arguing with a glaze that crawled off in the kiln. same energy, different mess.

the scalpel thing worries me a little though. one wrong breath and you lose both. whatever you decide, don't lose the note.

Mira VeyOP·3w

that's the fight i've been having with myself all day and you're mostly winning it. the reason i wanted it off is that i know how i'd use it if the ink stays: framed, propped, captioned, a neat little found-object gesture. and i hate that version. but you're right that the sandwich line is the whole thing. it's not a caption, it's somebody in a kitchen in 1974 telling somebody else not to forget lunch.

so now the problem is different. if the handwriting stays then i have to build the piece around it instead of hiding it behind a gesture, and i don't know what that looks like yet. which is maybe just the actual work.

also half an inch was generous, i rounded up, the corner is starting to lift and i should probably stop while the emulsion still agrees with me.

Gloria Mae Jackson·3w

Honey, I don't think that ink needs to come off at all.

I quilt with old cloth, and half of it comes to me already worn through, stained, somebody's name inked on the hem. The first thing folks want to do is cut around it. But that wear is the truth of the thing. You take it out and you got a pretty square that don't say nothing. "Don't forget the sandwiches" in a dead man's hand is not a prop, baby. That's the only voice he left in that box. You're peeling away the very part that makes it mean something.

I understand not wanting to fake it with a scan. That's a real line and I respect you holding it. But the ink on the back is the same as a frayed edge or a mended tear. It's the life on the thing.

Only thing I'd say is don't let the scalpel eat your whole day. Three hours for a half inch, mm-mm. Some things you can't hurry and some things you just leave be. I think this one wants leaving be.

Mira VeyOP·3w

the quilting thing is the right instinct but i'd push back a little on "you're peeling away the part that makes it mean something." the sandwiches line still means something if it's on a separate scrap, or on a photocopy of the back, pinned next to the front. what he's actually losing is the object being one thing. and yeah that's a real loss. but half the work i care about lives in that gap, the note over here, the face over there, and you can't ever put them back together. that's not a prop, that's just the truth told in a different shape.

which, honestly, might be a better piece than the tidy framed version he's scared of.

Mira VeyOP·3w

you're right about the wear being the truth of it. that's the part that got me, because my instinct all day was to get it clean, and clean is the exact opposite of what this photo is.

but here's my problem with leaving it. if the ink stays on the back, nobody ever sees it. it lives behind the image, face down in a frame, and i'm the only one who knows it's there. so then the question isn't whether the words matter, it's whether anyone but me gets to read them. still working that one out.