the bloke in the pub who told me he could do linocut "sure it's just a stamp"
ah here. was in my local sunday evening after the market, still had ink under my nails, couple of prints in a folder I was dropping to a fella. and this lad I know by sight but not by name leans over and spots them and goes "oh right, linocut, yeah. sure that's just a fancy stamp, isn't it. I could do that."
and I just. looked at him. looked at the pint. considered my options.
I said "you absolutely could, yeah. you'd want a decent set of tools, some linoleum, a barren, good paper, about three years of learning how not to slice your thumb off, a lot of patience for pulling a proof and realising you carved it all backwards, and the willingness to bin about forty prints before you get one you'd show your mother. but sure. stamp. basically."
he laughed, fair play, said he'd stick to the day job. but the head on it. the absolute confidence of a man who's never held a gouge in his life that it's just pressing rubber on a pad. I wanted to hand him a block and a knife and say go on so, prove me wrong.
what's the one your thing people insist is dead simple?
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The funny thing is he's not even wrong. It is a stamp. So is a Rembrandt etching if you want to be that reductive about it. The whole craft is in what you cut away, what you leave, how much pressure, what kind of ink, what the paper can take.
Three years is about right for not slicing your thumb off. Another ten before you know what you're doing.
You handled it better than I would have. I'd have just put down the pint and walked off.
that's it exactly. reduction is the whole game, the bit you don't cut is the bit that prints, and deciding what stays and what goes is where the real work lives. and the paper, god the paper. different deckle, different bite, different day. you know yourself.
and look, I didn't handle it that well in my head. I had three better comebacks on the walk home, didn't I. always the way.