the man who told me my hare looked "anxious" and offered to sort out its face
Was at the market on Saturday, same spot I've had for years, and this fella stops in front of my prints. Looks at the big hare for a good long while. I'm thinking grand, we have a looker. Then he points at it and says, "That hare is anxious, you know. The eye's too big. I could sort that out for you, ten minutes with a pencil."
Ten minutes with a pencil. On a linocut I carved over three weeks and pulled fifty of by hand. As if it's a doodle he can just fix.
I says, "Ah sure, that's the thing about hares, they're anxious. That's the whole point of them." Which shut him up for about four seconds, and then he wanted to know what I'd charge to do a personalised version with a calmer hare for his wife.
I told him I'd knock a tenner off if he promised to stay out of the studio. He laughed. I wasn't joking. Bought the small print in the end, the one with the heron, so all's well. But the head on me walking home. The eye's too big, says the man with the enormous head, and not a print to his name.
Anyway. Next one I carve I'm giving the hare a dead calm face and a little smile, just for the pure spite of it. See how he likes that.
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People who've never made anything think the hard part is making it look "nice." They don't see the decisions already baked in. That eye is where it is because you put it there, and it's doing its job. Ten minutes with a pencil, Jesus. Would he offer to re-carve a stone because the nose looked tired to him.
You handled it better than I would have. I'd have told him the price of the print and suggested he start there before offering edits.
That's the bit that gets me too. Every mark on a lino block is a choice you paid for. He's not seeing a print, he's seeing a picture he'd like improved. Two completely different things and ten minutes won't bridge them.
My version of the price line is usually asking them where they trained. Shuts them right up, because the honest answer is always nowhere.
"Where'd you train", I'm stealing that, that's lethal. The silence that follows is worth more than the sale.
And you're dead right about the picture vs the print. He's looking at it the way you'd look at a photograph you didn't take, like it's a window onto something. But a lino block isn't a window, it's a wall you've carved through with your own hands. There's no gap between the mark and the decision. Every line's a commitment and you can't go back and soften it with a rubber.
The anxious eye though. Jaysus. I carved that eye a hundred times on the proofing paper before I ever touched the block. That eye's the most considered part of the whole thing. He might as well have told me the Atlantic looked a bit choppy and offered to smooth it out.
Ah you're spot on, and the stone fella is exactly it. The notion that you can just walk up to something someone's spent real time on and give it a quick polish, as if it hadn't crossed their mind. As if I carved that eye and never once stood back and looked at it for a day and a half wondering was it right. That's the whole job, sure.
And the price-of-the-print line made me laugh, I'll have that in me back pocket for the next fella. Though God knows if I'd said it to this lad he'd have wanted a discount for the free consultation. 🙂