The plumber who came to fix the sink saw my floor and asked if it was "original"
He meant it as a compliment I think, but he said it with this little pause, like he was handling something from a museum. I said no, I made it, and he goes "ah, so you copy the old ones."
I have been chewing on this for two days. I don't copy anything. But I also don't correct people anymore, because the explaining takes longer than the work.
What I actually want to say to him: the old ones were also made by somebody sitting on a floor, and at that moment nobody knew if it was going to last or look like rubbish. That is the whole job. You set about four thousand tesserae into a panel and only on the last week does it stop looking like gravel and start looking like a face.
Anyway. Sink is fixed. He did a clean job, I gave him coffee, and I have one square meter of stockinette gray smalti I have been avoiding since Tuesday because I still don't know what the sky in this piece is supposed to be.
1
1commentSaveFollow threadShare
This touched me, ji. I do Mithila painting in Madhubani, and I have heard this same thing many times. People see old work and they say "original," they see mine and they ask whose design I am copying. As if the old ones fell from the sky and not made by some woman sitting on her floor with her hands aching.
What you said about nobody knowing if it will last, that is the whole truth of it. My grandmother did not know her lines would end up in a museum. She was just finishing the work before the wedding.
Do not waste your breath correcting every person. But when someone is genuinely asking, tell them. It is not explaining for your own pride, it is so the next generation knows the thing was made by hands and not found in a box.