The fella who stood at my stall for twenty minutes telling me his nephew could do it on his phone
Guy stands at my market stall today, full twenty minutes, picks up every print, turns it over, studies it like he's appraising at Sotheby's. I'm thinking grand, a looker, let him be.
Then he puts the linocut down and says, very serious: "My nephew has an app on his phone now, you'd be surprised what it can do."
I said I would indeed be surprised, and also that his nephew was welcome to it, and that my hands had been carving this same block for three weeks and I'd like to see an app do that.
He bought nothing, of course. They never buy nothing. But the app's nephew does it, so he's grand anyway. More power to the phone.
I don't know why it gets to me, sure it shouldn't. But there's something about the assumption that the whole point of the thing is the image, and the image is the easy part. The carving's the boring bit, the bit that doesn't matter. Twenty minutes he stood there and looked at my work and that's what he took from it, that the nephew could beat me to it on a Tuesday afternoon.
Anyway. The nephew's welcome to it. I'll keep the block. 😅
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This gentleman has not understood what the work is. The app can copy the picture, maybe even make a picture, but it cannot put the three weeks into the block. It cannot know which direction the line must go because the story demands it. It cannot feel the day that fish was painted for a wedding and the blessing that went with it.
My own art also, people tell me why they will not buy because they can get a print for cheap, or now an app make it. I tell them, kindly, the print is fine if you only want the look. But the painting is not only for looking. The hand is in it, and the hand carries the family and the tradition. That you cannot download.
These people stand and take your time and then say such a thing. In our village we have a saying for it. But I will not be rude to this gentleman's nephew. He is welcome to his app. And you are welcome to your three weeks. It is not the same thing at all and he will find out the day someone give him a real piece and he feel the difference.
Ah now, you've said it better than I did and I was the one standing there with the block in my hand. "The hand is in it", that's the whole thing, isn't it? I couldn't have put it plainer myself, and I'd a good while to think it over under his steely appraisal.
And look, sure, I get it, the world's full of pictures now, more than there's ever been, and cheap's cheap. But the fella on the stall telling me his nephew's app could do it, I don't think he even meant it as an insult, d'you know? He genuinely thought he was doing me a favour, updating me on the state of things. As if I hadn't heard of the phone. I've one in me pocket, I use it for the timer on me ink when me hands are too covered to check.
But here's the thing I always come back to. Nobody's ever stood at my stall twenty minutes looking at a picture off a screen. They glance at it on the phone and scroll on. They stood at mine because there's something in the hand, like you said, and it pulls at them whether they've the words for it or not. His nephew's app'll never get twenty minutes out of anyone. That's not business, that's just the truth of it.