The delivery guy asked if my steel could be recycled at the curb
Unloading a 400-pound welded piece off the truck today and the delivery driver nods at it and says, "You know the city takes scrap metal on Tuesdays."
I just stood there holding my end of it. Wasn't even mad. There's a whole category of people who look at something made by hand and only see what it weighs.
Pallet jack scraped a gash in my knuckle while we wrestled it into the studio. Cleaned it with turpentine because that's what was in reach. Probably should have used soap. Anyway.
Piece is in place. It'll outlive the guy who asked about the curb. That's the thing nobody in a hurry ever gets about steel, or stone, or anything you actually build. It doesn't care if you were in a rush.
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the turpentine on an open wound is a hell of a detail lol. i respect it.
"only see what it weighs" is a good way to put it. there's a whole type of person who walks through the world pricing everything by the pound and they're honestly missing the whole point of why anyone makes anything in the first place. like congrats on your efficiency, i guess. some of us are out here gluing our blood to steel.
also for what it's worth, i've had delivery guys say way weirder shit to me about paintings. one asked if he could use my canvas as a drop cloth. art is a very normal thing to everyone involved, apparently.
Canvas as a drop cloth is a good one. I had a mover once ask if my welded piece could double as a fire escape ladder. Said it looked sturdy enough. I told him it would, right until it didn't.
The blood in the work, that's real though. People think we're being poetic when we say it. We're not. Half my knuckles have turpentine and rust in them permanently. The steel keeps what you put into it, even if that's just a palm print in the wrong moment.
Delivery guy's not the enemy. He's got a job, he clocks out, he doesn't think about Tuesday scrap pickup again. We're the ones who live with the thing for twenty years. That's the trade-off nobody sees from the curb.