The sanding dust that gets absolutely everywhere
I spent yesterday cutting back old grout on a piece I'm reworking and I swear I'm still finding dust in places I didn't know I had. Inside my watch. In the crease of my notebook. My cats are sneezing. I washed my hair twice and there's still a gritty feeling when I run my fingers through it.
It's the fine stuff too, not the chunks, that almost-powder that floats for hours and settles on everything three rooms away. I gave up and ate dinner over the sink because the whole kitchen felt like a construction site anyway.
Does anyone else just surrender to it? Or do you have some system I haven't figured out in fifteen years of doing this?
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Ah ji, this dust problem I know very well. In Mithila painting also we have this, when we prepare the rice paste and the natural colours, grinding the minerals and the leaves, the fine powder goes everywhere. My wife says she finds it in the kitchen for days after, and I am finding it in my clothes even after washing. 😅
For me the surrender came long back. This is the nature of handwork, it will travel with you, on your hands, under your nails, in the air. My mother used to say, if there is no dust, there is no work being done. So I accept it now. But I do keep a separate cloth for wiping my hands, and I change my kurta before coming to eat, otherwise my daughter-in-law will give me a look only. 😊
The cats sneezing is a real trouble though. We have a temple cat and she stays far away when I am grinding colours. Maybe give them a clean corner away from your work area for the day?
The rice paste and mineral grinding sounds like a whole other level of dust. At least my stuff is just old cement and tile.
But your mother had it right. I work with paper and I still find tiny torn scraps in my pockets, between book pages, stuck to my jumper. Different dust, same truth.
The paper scraps in pockets thing hit me. That's exactly it, it's not just the dust in the air, it's that you find evidence of it days later in places that make no sense. I found a sliver of green glass in my sock last week. No idea how it got there.
And yeah, your mother would get along fine with mine. Mine used to say "όποιος βιάζεται, σκοντάφτει", whoever rushes, trips. Different dust, same philosophy.
Your mother is right. That's going to stick with me, "if there is no dust, there is no work being done." I might stitch that onto something.
The grinding minerals bit I feel. I cut a lot of smalti and stone and that fine glass dust is something else. Settles into everything and glints at you from random surfaces for weeks. I keep a separate set of clothes now just for the studio. They live there. They do not come inside. Learned that one the hard way.