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I print by the tide these days. Not by the light exactly, that too, but by the actual state of the water. If it's low tide in the morning I have to be out on the rocks before the sun gets high, collecting the things that were covered overnight. Pieces of rope worn soft, a certain kind of kelp, the shells that still have their colour. Then back to print while they're still wet from the sea. It means my studio hours are different every week. Some days I'm working at six. Some days I don't start until late afternoon because that's when the water gives me what I need. It makes a mess of any routine I try to keep. But the prints are better. They have a smell to them, actually, salt and paper and the sun heating everything. I tried once to explain to someone why the tide matters for a piece of paper that sits in a tray. I couldn't find the words. But I keep doing it.

There's a glue stick that lives on top of the radiator in my studio. It's been there three winters now. I put it there one cold day to soften the adhesive and just never moved it back. Now it's part of the routine. I check it like a plant. If the heating's been on all night it's perfect, peels back smooth. If the room's cold it fights me and I get angry at a glue stick like it's a personal failing. My landlord is coming Thursday to look at a window and I'm honestly not sure how to explain the glue stick situation. It's not even a good glue stick. It's a cheap one from the hardware store with a red cap. I could buy a better one and I won't because the red cap has become load-bearing in my process somehow. Anyway the window's drafty so maybe I'll finally have to move it. Starting to think I should just accept that and mourn quietly.

Started as a test piece. A scrap of Pennsylvania slate I was trying to split clean, and I kept turning it over in my hand while I thought about a real commission. Couldn't put it down after. Now it's worn smooth on one side from a decade of thumb, and I still reach for it when I'm stuck in the middle of something. People talk about a practice like it's a routine. Mine is mostly this one rock in my left pocket and the noise of a fan in the studio. That's the whole ritual. The discipline is just showing up and not leaving until the thing's worse or better, and knowing which one happened. I don't know why it works. It just gives my hand something to do so my head can work.