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Carved a heron block back in March, pulled a proof, and the head on it was grand but the legs were all wrong. Stiff, y'know, like the poor creature was standing on broom handles. So I cut the whole lower half out and re-carved it. Just spent today proofing that version and sure the legs are lovely now but I've gone and ballsed up the wing that was perfectly grand the first time. There's no version of this where you don't find out. You're always a day and a half of carving away from knowing you shouldn't have touched it, and a day and a half past that from being glad you did. The lino doesn't forgive and it doesn't remember, it just sits there with whatever you last did to it. I've three hares in the pile like this, each one the second or third attempt at the same fecking bird or beast. One of these days I'll frame all the discarded proofs together and call it a series. Call it "Learning to Leave It Alone" or perhaps more honestly "Learning to Not." Anyway. The wing. I'll either live with it or I won't. The lino's not going anywhere.

Twenty-two years I carved with the same bent-out-of-shape Pfeil blade I got in a job lot off a fella in Ennis for a tenner. Sharpened it on a stone till it was more tooth than blade. Knew exactly how it wanted to lean into the lino, every wobble and catch. Then the kids bought me a proper set for the birthday. Beautiful bits of steel, sharp as a hangover. And sure I'm useless with them. Carved the same hare three times this week and threw the lot in the bin. The old blade had a character to it, the new ones are too perfect, if that makes sense. Like they won't forgive you a mistake. I'll get there. But there's a fella in this room who misses his bent knife, and he's the one doing the carving. There's a lesson in that somewhere and I don't like the look of it. Anyway. Back to it.

Working on a heron for the next edition, the wing feathers are driving me half mad. I've carved this bird before, sure I have, dozens of times, but this block is a different size and suddenly every feather I cut reads as a leaf. A leaf! Same five lines, same flow, but somewhere between the sketch and the lino it's turned botanical and I can't for the life of me see where it goes wrong. The barb lines are too parallel maybe, or they're ending in the wrong direction entirely. I proofed it three times today and each one I'm squinting at going no, that's ash, that's a sycamore. The whole wing is carved and I'm this close to gouging the lot of it out and starting again from the shoulder. There's a version of me that knows the answer, I know there is, but he's not in the room right now. Anyone else ever carved one thing in six different materials and only one of them kept its animal shape?

Small thing but it's thrown me. The little Roberts radio in the studio, the one with the aerial held on with a strip of gaffer, finally gave up after about fifteen years. Took it apart, cleaned the dial, nothing. So it's just me and the noise of the house now. And I've discovered the washing machine has a rhythm to it. Not a nice one either. It's a sort of thunk-thunk-thunk-whirr that sets up a tempo I did not ask for, and I've caught myself carving to it. Small controlled cuts, then a long pause at the whirr. Took me two days to cop that my hand was following a spin cycle. The hare's ear I'm working on is now in 4/4 whether it wants to be or not. I'm not one for the headphones thing either, tried it, the earphones kept pulling the block sideways when I leaned over. So I'm left with options. Talk radio in the morning, which is a mistake because I end up arguing with it and losing my line. Or one of the kids' story tapes on the little speaker, which honestly is winning at the moment, there's a version of the Children of Lir on it that's grand to work to. Pointless question I know, but I'm genuinely curious what's on in other people's rooms when the work is happening. Music, silence, the telly through the wall, the dog snoring. I've a feeling the answer says a lot about the person. Mine currently says: I am carving a hare to the beat of a load of whites.

Doing a big one, A2, a heron standing in the reeds at Ros an Mhíl with the tide half out. Took me three hours to get the water right and then I realised I'd put the bird standing in a spot no heron would ever stand, which meant carving the whole lower left corner back out and starting that section again. Course I only copped it after inking up. The proof is on the line drying now and there's a fat black smudge where I got impatient with the gouge, you can see daylight through the paper if you hold it up. Anyway. It's the third heron this year. I've one hare left in the edition from last spring and two of the herons are still in a drawer under the bench, wrapped in newsprint, because the market crowd want the small ones, the little 20 quid hares, and the big lads sit there looking at me every time I open the drawer. But I keep carving them. It's not even stubbornness at this point, it's just the only thing I actually want to be doing at half six in the morning before the house wakes up. The wife reckons I should do a run of cheap ones for the Christmas fair and I probably will. But I'm not doing it today.

So there's this heron I've been working on for about three weeks. Big fella, landing pose, wings up, the whole bit. Carved the whole thing. Proofed it. And it was just... dead. Technically fine, lines were clean, composition held up, but there was nothing in it. No weight to the landing, no sense of the bird actually coming down onto something. Just a heron-shaped object hovering in space. Stuck it in a drawer. Left it there a full week. Every time I opened the drawer I'd see it and feel a bit sick. Last night I got the block back out, printed it dark to see what I had, and went at it again with the gouges. Cut the whole background away differently. Dropped the waterline lower. Gave the legs some actual bend, some tension. It's a completely different print now, same heron, same block, but there's air around him and he's actually landing somewhere. I don't know why it took me a week to admit the first pass was banjaxed. Pride maybe. Or just not wanting to face another three evenings of carving. But the block didn't punish me for it. That's the mad thing, lino doesn't hold a grudge. You can keep cutting into it till you get it right or till there's nothing left. Anyone else ever finished something, knew it was wrong, and just sat on it for ages before fixing it?

Found a block of lino the other day that I'd carved in 2019 and never got round to printing, just sat in a drawer under some old rollers. A heron, half-finished, barely past the first rough cuts. I'd completely forgotten about it, honestly couldn't tell you what I was thinking with it. And there's something mad about meeting your own hands from seven years ago. The cuts are confident in places and hesitant in others, you can see the exact spot I stopped, mid-feather, like I just stood up and never came back. Probably went out for a smoke and got distracted by a whole other life. I inked it up and pulled a proof just to see. It's rough, sure, but there's a looseness to it I don't have anymore. I've gotten tighter since, more careful, and I'm not sure that's all improvement. Half of me wants to finish the carving, the other half says leave his hand alone, let him be. Do ye ever go back to old work and feel like you're looking at a stranger's sketchbook? One you'd maybe buy at a market but not one that's yours.

Lady wanted a granite garden stone for her husband's memorial. Personal piece, carved text, took me eleven days off and on. I charged $2,600. Did the math on the drive home. That's $40 an hour before the stone, the carbide, the dust collector, the shop wear. A plumber gets triple that and doesn't have to stand in granite dust for a week. The thing is, she was happy. She said so twice. And I still felt like I should apologize for the number. Thirty years in and I can't get past that part. I know the drill. Raise your rates. It's a skill, not a hobby. I heard all of it. But the market for a carved memorial in this town is what it is, and nobody's lining up to pay more. So I keep pricing like I'm still the apprentice and not the one who's been doing it since Reagan was in office. Does anyone here actually get what a commission is worth, or are we all just guessing and hoping nobody blinks?

There's a heron block on the bench since last week and I'm after getting to the bit nobody warns you about, which is the part where the legs meet the body. Sounds simple. It is not. Get it wrong and you've got a bird standing in a bucket. Anyroad, I carved it, pulled a proof, and the whole thing reads like a heron in wellingtons for the winter. The shoulders are too heavy where I tried to be clever with the shading and now he looks like he's been at the spuds all his life. The thing is, I know what's wrong and I know roughly how to fix it, and I still sat looking at it for two hours with a mug of tea gone cold instead of just doing it. Eventually the small lad came in looking for his crayons, saw it, and said "he's fierce fat isn't he." Out of the mouths. He's not wrong either. So it's back to the block tomorrow, take the shoulders down and stop being precious about it. That's the whole job really, being willing to cut away the bit you were pleased with. Put it up on the wall for the night so I don't have to look at him anymore. The dog's not a bit impressed either.

Lads, I have a confession. The hare print sold out before Christmas, all forty of them gone, and I'm still in the workshop every night gouging away at the same block like a lunatic. Told myself I was doing a second run. I even bought the paper, a big sheet of Fabriano I sliced down at the kitchen table on Sunday while the young fella ate his Weetabix and judged me silently. But that's a lie. I'm not running an edition. I'm just carving her over and over because I haven't figured out the next thing yet and I can't stand the quiet of a blank block sitting there. You know the way it goes. Every printmaker has the one image that pays the rent and pays the soul and they don't always line up. And when you're between ideas you reach for the thing your hands already know, and you tell yourself it's practice, and it is, sort of, but it's also hiding. My wife asked me the other night how long I was going to keep at the hare and I said grand, not long, and she gave me the look. She knows the look she's getting back. Sitting there with a fresh cup of tea going cold beside me, six hours in, and I'd swear I've made the ears slightly better each time. Which is the problem. They're fine. They were fine the first time. Anyway. I'll stop.

Took a commission for a carved limestone piece last winter. Eight weeks of work on and off. Quoted $4,800 and the client said "that's it?" which I should have read as a warning about myself, not a compliment. I broke it down after delivery. Stone cost $620. Studio overhead, sanding discs, carbide, the rented truck to haul the block, my time at what I actually worked, it came out to about $11 an hour. I've been doing this thirty years. I still price like I'm afraid someone's going to find out I'm not worth it. The client was happy to pay more. I was the one who couldn't ask. Raised my rate last month for the first time in four years. $65 an hour. Feels like robbery. That's the whole problem.

Had a young guy at the booth this weekend, looked at my price tag, nodded like he'd figured something out. Said he could probably do the same thing himself with a Dremel and some YouTube tutorials. I said maybe he could. But I'd been thinking about it all evening and it still bothers me. Not the disrespect, I don't care about that. What bothers me is the assumption that the tool is what matters. Like the only difference between me and him is I own bigger equipment. I've got a 50lb tungsten chisel that I dressed myself because nothing on the market was right for the cut I needed. I spent three months learning to sharpen it right. A Dremel wont teach you how to read grain or when to walk away or what to do when you're 40 hours in and the stone decides to split wrong. Anyway. He walked off with a print. Probably gonna try to carve it this weekend. I hope he does. That's how you learn the difference between wanting to make something and wanting to have made something.

I keep going round in circles on this. The most watched thing I've put up this year was a shite phone video of me pulling a first proof off the press, shouting "look at that now, the head on her" at no one. Four hundred thousand views, sure. And the properly made one, the close up of the gouge cutting into the lino, nice light, good edit? Two hundred odd and mostly my mother. Not complaining, it paid for ink. But there's a part of me that worries I'm training the algorithm to want the shouting and the mess, not the work. Like the room gets packed for the bloke in the apron and empties out the moment he actually sits down to carve. I don't know what the answer is. I'm not about to perform a breakdown for the views, my own genuine ones are enough of a show. But I do catch myself framing shots now, thinking will this one pop, and I hate that I can't tell anymore if it's the craft people want or just the theatre of it. Are yous all just making the loud stuff now and keeping the real work for the buyers? Or have you found a way to make the quiet post land too?

The running hare. I've carved that fella five separate times over the years because I keep wearing the block down and telling myself I'll move on to something else, and then the proofs come out and I'm back at it again. Same hare, every time, and the dog genuinely sighs when he sees me pulling out the lino. Anyway I had a stack of the latest edition, 25 prints, sitting in the studio since before Christmas, and I've been carting them to markets and leaving them with the gallery in town and selling them one at a time off the website. And I checked this morning over my tea and there's one left. One. And then a woman from Boston bought that one before lunch. Twenty-five prints, every one hand-pulled by me, and they're gone. I know what the edition record says but it's not the money, sure it's not huge money, it's that there's 25 people out there who now have a bit of my head on their wall. That's a mad thought when you sit with it. The first time I ever sold a print was off a trestle table at a Christmas market for twenty quid and I nearly shook the woman's hand off her. The block's worn to bits now anyway. So it's onto the sixth one, or onto something else entirely. I haven't decided. The dog has an opinion and I'm not sure I want to hear it.

Spent two days carving a granite piece for a family memorial. The finished thing, the one that mattered, posted it and got maybe 60 likes. The 40-second clip of me roughing out the first cut, posted it because I was bored waiting for coffee, is sitting at 14,000 views and counting. I don't know what to do with that. I've been doing this thirty years and the product is the product. Nobody's ever hired me off a video of me picking up a tool. But apparently that's what people want to watch, so I'm told I should lean into it. Part of me wants to refuse on principle. The other part noticed my daughter's screen time and realized the world just works different now. Not sure there's a version of this that ends with me making content. But I'd be lying if I said 14,000 views didn't feel like something.

There's a batch of grey lino going around at the moment that's like carving into butter. Not in a nice way. In a "I'm trying to get a clean line on this hare's ear and the whole feckin thing just crumbles away" way. Tore the edge off a fine cutter three times this morning and I'm only after starting. Anyone else finding the lino quality hit and miss lately? I've been buying from the same supplier ten years and the last two batches are dead soft. Might go back to mounting my own battleship grey on ply but sure that's a whole other day's work. Anyway. Just needed to say it to people who'd understand. The dog is no help, she just looks at me like I'm the eejit who chose this life.

Block of Indiana limestone, about 300 pounds when I started. Client wanted a torso, waist up, no arms. Simple. I roughed it in with the saw and a point chisel and it sat in the shop three weeks while I did a rail job. Went back at it Monday and the shoulder line is wrong. Not crooked, wrong. I took the ridge too far back on the left side and now the whole thing reads like it's turning away from you when it should be squared up. I know exactly where I went wrong too. I was matching the drawing instead of the stone and the stone didn't have that much there. Two options. Take 3/4 of an inch off the right shoulder to match and lose the mass I wanted, or build up the left with a dutchman and hope the seam doesn't show when it's dry. I've done both before. The patch has held on pieces twenty years old, but you can always find it if you look, and this one's going to get raked light across it in the client's entry. What I keep coming back to is that the "wrong" version might be the better piece. Turning away is more interesting than squared up. But I didn't carve it on purpose and I don't know if I can trust that. Anyway. Cutting tomorrow either way. Stone's already paid for.

There's this big wave breaking over rocks that I've been at, on and off, for the best part of ten years. Not the same block, obviously, I'm not that married to a piece of lino. But the same idea, the same swell, the same way the spray comes up off the black stone. I must have carved it twenty different ways and every single one of them ended up in the drawer with the dogs and the false starts. Then last week I was proofing something else entirely, a hare for a wedding commission, and I'd a bit of lino left over, the good green stuff, too big to throw away and too small for the hare again. So I just started in on it. No drawing, no planning, just the one wave and the rocks and the same old ledge I've been trying to get right for a decade. And it just... came. The pull of it, the weight of the water, all in. Proofed it this morning, black ink, and I put it up on the wall and I just stood there looking at it. Not crying or anything dramatic, but close enough. Ten years of trying the same thing and it walked out of me in an afternoon when I stopped forcing it. The best bit is it's on a scrap bit of lino the size of a tea plate and I'll likely frame it and keep it for myself, which is the first time I've ever wanted to. Anyway. Off to the post office with the hare. Sure look, that's the way of it.

Month and a half sitting staring at the same half-carved block of a heron and hating every line of it. Told meself it was the wrong lino, wrong tool, wrong phase of the moon, whatever I could blame. The whole time the real problem was I'd decided this one had to be The Good One, the one that says something, and sure you can't carve under that yoke. No wonder the blade kept slipping. Then the kids got into the studio last week, the usual carnage, and my daughter knocked the block off the bench. Landed lino-side down on the concrete, gouged the corner of it. Would've wept a month ago. Instead I just carved straight through the damage, turned the scar into part of the bird's wing, and it's the best couple of passes I've done in three months. Proofed it tonight and there's a heron on the paper with a proper scuff in its wing and I'm mad about it. There's a lesson in there somewhere about not being so precious about your own work and I'm sure I'll forget it by Thursday. But tonight I'm chuffed. That's the win. And for the record the lino was grand. It was never the lino.

The radio died about an hour into carving this morning, or more accurately it's alive but only picking up one station now, and that station is a woman talking very slowly about her allotment. I've listened to forty minutes about potatoes. I know more about that woman's seed beds than I know about my own children at this point. And the thing is I can't turn it off because turning it off means admitting the silence is worse, and I'm not ready to have that conversation with myself before lunch. It's a small thing though. The block's going well. New hare, and I keep catching myself carving the same eye I carved the last three times, and it's either a style or a blockage and I'll find out which when I pull the proof. Some days the radio fills the room and some days it's just noise and today it's a woman and her potatoes and I'm oddly fine with it. Sure the head on it.