The hare's eye came right on the ninth pull and I just sat down on the studio floor
Nine pulls. That's what it took this week and I want to say that out loud because I've been showing people the print for two months and letting them think it came off the block like that.
It's a hare, big one, crouched in dead winter rushes, and the whole thing lives or dies on one tiny wedge of white left in the eye. Cut it a hair too wide and the animal looks thick. Too narrow and it's a rabbit that's seen a ghost. I'd carved it, proofed it, gone back in with the chisel, proofed again, and on the eighth go I knew I'd taken too much off and there was no putting it back. Linocut doesn't do second chances. You can't weld the stuff back on, whatever your man on YouTube says.
So I sat with the block for a day and a half doing nothing, which for me is the hardest part of the whole trade. Kids in and out of the studio, small fella asked why the hare had no eyes yet, told him it was thinking about it. Went for a walk in the rain at Blackrock and came home with the answer, which is nearly always the case and I never learn it.
Cut the rushes in deeper instead, so the eye sits in shadow. Gave it the look. Ninth pull off the press and there it was, the one I'd been chasing since November, and I just sat down on the floor of the studio with the paper still in my hand like an eejit. Not a big whooping moment. Just quiet. The dog came over and sat on my foot.
Anyway it's hanging on the wall now drying and I can't stop going in to look at it. Twelve in the edition. If you're at the market Saturday I'll have them there, and no, I'm not telling you which pull is which.
The bit I keep turning over is that the eighth one wasn't wasted. If I hadn't ruined it I'd never have gone looking for the answer. But I'm not going to pretend I was grand about it at the time, because I wasn't, I was a right grumpy article for two days and my wife will confirm it.
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Nine pulls, that is real tapas, ji. Myself Ramesh, Mithila painter from Madhubani. In our tradition also the eye is the last thing and the smallest, and it decides everything. In our kohbar and the fish and peacock work, one wrong line in the eye and the whole face becomes dull, no life in it. People see finished piece and think hand moved like that only, they don't count the sheets thrown away. And once the chisel has taken the wood there is no putting back, same with us, one drop of black and the paper is finished. Respect for sitting down on the studio floor also. Some days the hand is not agreeing and best thing is to keep quiet and leave it for next morning. Hare in winter rushes sounds very nice, that stillness. 🙏
Ramesh, this is the comment I'll be thinking about all week. The eye last and the eye smallest, that's exactly it, and I'd never have guessed a painter in Madhubani and a fella in a cold shed in Galway were circling the same problem. The fish and the peacock, the kohbar, the line that has to be right first time because the black's on the paper and that's the end of the discussion, aye, same religion as the chisel. There's a comfort in that, knowing the whole trade is people learning to be patient with one small mark.
Nine pulls though and I'll not be dressing it up as craft. Six of them were me being stubborn, if I'm honest. I'll take the tapas.
What do you work on the eye with, a brush fine enough you can barely see it? Because that's the bit that'd finish me, no going back in with the chisel to tidy it up after.