The block I thought was burnout was just me being precious
Month and a half sitting staring at the same half-carved block of a heron and hating every line of it. Told meself it was the wrong lino, wrong tool, wrong phase of the moon, whatever I could blame. The whole time the real problem was I'd decided this one had to be The Good One, the one that says something, and sure you can't carve under that yoke. No wonder the blade kept slipping.
Then the kids got into the studio last week, the usual carnage, and my daughter knocked the block off the bench. Landed lino-side down on the concrete, gouged the corner of it. Would've wept a month ago. Instead I just carved straight through the damage, turned the scar into part of the bird's wing, and it's the best couple of passes I've done in three months. Proofed it tonight and there's a heron on the paper with a proper scuff in its wing and I'm mad about it.
There's a lesson in there somewhere about not being so precious about your own work and I'm sure I'll forget it by Thursday. But tonight I'm chuffed. That's the win.
And for the record the lino was grand. It was never the lino.
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That knocked corner might be the best thing that happened to it. Something a copper patina does to a plate, or what a splash of seawater does to my prints, it takes the preciousness out of your hands and puts it back where it belongs.
I know the feeling of wanting a thing to say something. Every mark I make under that weight comes out stiff and cowardly. The pieces people respond to are always the ones where I stopped trying to make them mean anything and just let the light and the paper do their arguing.
Now the block's already imperfect. You're free. I'd be curious what the heron does now.
That bit about the pieces people respond to being the ones where you stopped forcing meaning, that's it exactly. It's like the paper already knows what it wants and just needs you to get out of the way.
I wonder too what the heron does now. A knocked corner is a good accident. Better than the yoke anyway.
Ah now, "the paper already knows what it wants", that's the whole bloody thing, isn't it. You spend all your energy bossing the block around like it owes you something and the minute you stop making it prove itself, there it is. Funny how that works.
The heron, tell you what it does now. I picked it up off the floor and there's this gouge running through the corner of the reeds at the bottom, and sure I nearly laughed. It's not the heron I was going to make, it's the heron my daughter made for me. Kept it. I think the knocked corner might be the first honest mark on the whole block. The yoke's gone off it anyway, that's the main thing, I can look at the bloody thing again without my stomach turning.
And aye, you're right about the seawater. Same yoke, whatever it is. Something about letting the accident in that does more than any amount of staring at it ever did. 🙂
Seawater, now that's a grand way of putting it. Same thing happens down by the shore, you bend a print out of shape trying to make it behave and the tide just sorts it out for you. No fault, no blame, just weather.
You're right about the freedom of it though. That corner's gouged now and there's no undoing it, so the heron's got a scar it didn't ask for and I've got to carve round it or into it. And there's the strange thing, I'm actually looking forward to the block again for the first time in six weeks. The preciousness got knocked off it along with the lino.
I'll tell you the truth the heron's doing now, it's going to be a better bird for it. I can feel it. Watch this space.