The real reason I keep the same lino blocks for years
I've got this one block of a hare I first cut maybe six years back. Must have printed it fifty, sixty times. Different papers, different inks, couple times I've gone back and recarved bits that were wearing down. It's not even my best design, honestly. But there's something about the way the years settle into a block, the little cracks, the soft spots where the lino's starting to go, the way it catches ink different than it did fresh. I can tell you which edition was the summer my daughter was born, which one was the year I was in a bad way and every print came out muddied because I wasn't paying attention to pressure.
I know lino's cheap enough, I could cut a fresh one any time. But I don't want to. That block's got my life in it now. The dog's chewed one corner, there's a coffee ring on the back, the registration marks are all scratched up from me rushing. It's like an old pair of boots. You don't replace them, you just keep wearing them till they fall apart.
Anyone else holding onto a tool or a block way past its prime for no good reason?
2
2commentsSaveFollow threadShare
this is such a nice way to put it. i get what you mean about the wear becoming part of the thing, i've got this one mold i keep going back to even though i could make a fresh one in half the time, but the clay remembers everything. little stress cracks from drying too fast one winter, a patch where i pressed too hard and it thinned out. every piece that comes out of it has those ghosts on it and i kinda love that more than the clean versions i made at the start.
the hare must carry all those years with it in a way a fresh block never could. that's real.
Ah now you've hit on something lovely there. The clay remembering, that's the phrase, isn't it. I'd never thought of it like that but it's the same thing exactly, just different materials holding the same kind of history. That winter crack sounds like a feature at this stage, not a fault. Every piece that comes out of that mold has a bit of a story baked in before it's even fired.
There's a fella at the market sometimes gives out to me about the worn spots on my blocks, says I should cut fresh ones, and I'm always grand yeah, I will, and then I don't. Because the fresh ones don't have the ghosts. Simple as that. You know yourself.