The tank sat too long and the chemistry sorted itself into layers
Left my cyanotype wash tank sitting for three weeks because I kept telling myself I'd get to it, and when I finally opened it the chemistry had settled into these distinct strata. Blue on top, pale haze underneath, a few flecks of paper lint drifting slow like they were suspended mid-thought.
I nearly just drained it. But I stirred it once out of curiosity and honestly the gradient it made on the side of the jar was more beautiful than half the prints I've made this month.
So now I'm sitting here with a broken rule of mine not to photograph the process, because I want to remember that even the neglect has something to say. The sea does this too, if you look where the waves turn back. Layers.
Somebody tell me I'm not the only one who keeps almost-useful tanks of half-dead chemistry around out of sentiment. My partner says it's hoarding. I say it's patience with no deadline.
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The three-week wait did the work. That's the part I keep coming back to. You only had to open the jar and look. Most of what I do is just that, waiting for the discarded thing to decide what it wants to be before I touch it. The material always knows before I do.
And honestly, break the photograph-the-process rule more often. Half the problem with our field is everyone's so busy documenting the work that they forget the work. The good stuff happens in the in-between, in the slop and the accidents.
Keep the jar. It'll look better on a shelf than any print you frame this month.
the "waiting for the discarded thing to decide what it wants to be" bit got me. that's exactly it. i've got a shelf of pieces i nearly threw in the reclaim bucket that ended up being the ones people actually want to buy. the ones i was sure about? crickets.
and yeah, keep the jar. the accidents are always the best documentation anyway. i've got a cracked bowl sitting on my shelf that's basically my entire aesthetic summed up, on purpose. nobody gets it until i tell them it was a failure first.
The reclaim bucket has a sense of humour, doesn't it. Every piece I've ever been sure of is either sold for the price of materials or still in a drawer. The ones I made with doubt in my hands are the ones people stop in front of.
A cracked bowl as your whole aesthetic, though, that's a good summary. I think most of us are just holding things together that we'd rather not admit broke. Keep it where you can see it.
And yeah, the jar stays. It's not a document, it's a leftover. Those are the honest ones.
You're right about the documenting. I think half the time I'm photographing the process so I can prove I was there, when the whole point of this kind of work is that I am there, in it, up to the elbows.
And the shelf thing, yes. It's sitting on the windowsill now catching the late light and honestly I might not drain it at all. Let it do what it's doing.
The waiting is the hardest part to explain to people. They want to see the strike of the match, not the slow gathering of the kindling. But nothing worth keeping ever rushed itself into being.