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There's a fella in the market who sharpens things for a living. Kitchen knives, secateurs, shears, he's there every Saturday with his stones and his strops and a little whetstone wheel rigged up to a bicycle chain somehow, and sure it's an education to watch him. I brought him my best carving gouge last week because I'd nicked the edge on something stupid, a staple I'd missed in a bit of lino, was raging with myself, and he handed it back and just said "whoever taught you to sharpen taught you right." And I thought about that more than I expected to. I learned from an old printer up in Sligo, man who could carve a heron's wing feather in a single cut and make it look like breathing. He taught me to sharpen dry, no oil, on a fine arkansas stone, and to feel the burr with your thumb rather than look for it. He'd say "you're not grinding metal, you're coaxing an edge out of it" and I used to think that was gas altogether till I realised he meant it. Anyway it got me thinking about how much of how we make things is just passed hand to hand like that. Little rituals. The way you hold your knife. The angle you trust without measuring. Someone showed you once and you've been doing it their way ever since, maybe without even knowing. I still sharpen dry. I check with my thumb. And I think of him every time.

Been sharpening my carving chisels the same way since my apprenticeship. Flat on the stone, edge up, standard grip. Did it a thousand times without thinking. Visited my old mentor two weeks ago. He watched me sharpen one for a minute and said nothing for a long time. Then he picked it up, turned it ninety degrees, and showed me he's been sharpening them sideways this whole time, using a different set of muscles so the stroke doesn't drift at the end. Said he's been meaning to mention it for about twenty-five years. Thing is, I can feel it. The edge comes off the stone cleaner. I've been fighting a wobble in my finish cuts for decades and I just called it the nature of the stone. Makes me wonder what else I've been doing the same wrong way so long I stopped noticing. You don't know what you don't know until someone who taught you shows you the better version of it. And you have to swallow the pride and take it.

I sharpen my own chisels. Nobody else touches them, not even the guy who apprenticed under me for three years. He's good with his hands, but his idea of sharp is where I'd start ruining stone. People don't get it. They think a chisel is a chisel. The edge is everything. I spend maybe twenty minutes on a stone chisel before a big cut, and most of that is getting the angle right on the flat. You can feel it in your wrist before you make the first strike. Dull is safer than bad, but neither one does the work. The old master I trained under sharpened his own until his hands shook too bad to hold the stone. Then he had me do it, but he watched every pass. Never said a word. Just stood there until I got it right. My daughter bought me one of those fancy electric sharpeners two Christmases ago. It's still in the box. Some things you don't hand over to a machine.

had this little brass sharpener, must've been twenty years with me. came from some market stall in ennis, cost a euro maybe. kept it in the same tin as my carving tools. and the blade's been gone off it for about three years now, I knew it, I knew it was just chewing the pencils instead of sharpening them, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it out. it'd been everywhere with me. first studio, second studio, the shed phase, the kitchen table phase. anyway the wife bought me a new one yesterday, one of those crank ones you bolt to the bench, and I had to stand there and actually drop the old one in the bin. felt daft, felt like I was putting down a dog or something. the new one's fierce good though. grand twist on it. might name it.<｜end▁of▁thinking｜> <｜｜DSML｜｜parameter name="tags" string="false">["tools", "studio rituals", "letting go", "pencil sharpener", "the shed years"]

I keep reading these threads about which platform is dead and which algorithm is punishing you and I have no insight to add because the only actual sale I got from social media this month came from a throwaway reel of me sharpening a palette knife. Just a plain knife and the ring of it against the sharpening stone. No music, no talking, 11 seconds, shot on my phone propped against a mug. A woman from Pune messaged asking if I could do a similar one of her grandfather's old house before it gets demolished. Paid a deposit before I even sent her a sketch. Meanwhile the carefully staged studio shots I spent an afternoon on, the ones with the good light and the composition I actually thought about, got maybe 40 views between them. I have stopped pretending I understand any of this. The algorithm wants what it wants. Sometimes I think it's just picking the videos where I'm clearly doing something and not performing. The minute I set up the ring light it knows and punishes me for it.

My mother used the same small bamboo brush for forty years before she gave it to me. I have kept it in the cloth wrap always, sharpening the point only with my tongue the way she taught me. Yesterday, applying the lampblack for the fish scales, the bristles splayed. Just gave up, like that. I sat with it in my hand for a long time, thinking she used this to paint the wedding panels of three generations. Now the point is gone and no amount of sharpening brings it back. People ask why I do not switch to the fine nylon brushes from Darbhanga market. They are cheaper, they last, the line is even. But this brush carried my mother's fingers. When I close my eyes I can still see her wrist moving over the aipan, the way she held breath at the fine detail. A new brush will have to learn me. I will have to teach it my grandmother's stroke. It feels like losing a person a second time. Today I opened the new brush and made one honest line with it. Not good yet. But the fish have to be painted, ji. The story does not wait.🙏

There's a proper black magic to the first pull of an edition. You've sharpened the gouges, you've proofed it till you're sick of the sight of it, and then you ink the bastard and you hold your breath because forty sheets is a long way and the lino's only going to get softer and mushier and more treacherous the whole way down. Anyway. Forty prints off the whale mooring block today, every last one clean. Not a dry spot, not a slip, not a bit of the fine line work packing up. The last one came off as good as the first and I near laughed out loud in the empty studio. The dog looked at me like I'd lost the run of myself entirely. There's a lot of the job you can't control, sure. Paper that decides to cockle on you, ink that goes off, a Tuesday. But that one hour, that run of forty, that was mine. Nobody else's. Felt like the whole craft thing was worth a damn today.

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.

Broke two blades this week and spent the best part of today convincing myself the lino had gone hard on me, or the cold was doing something to the block, or honestly that I'd just lost the touch overnight. Nearly resorted to sharpening with a mug base, the way you do when you're desperate and pride won't let you walk to the shop. Checked the block. Checked the bench. Swore at the dog, who was innocent. Then I took out the other fork, the one I keep for fine line work, and it went through the same piece of lino like butter. Two hours, gone, for nothing but a bit of steel that needed a stone and a half hour I didn't want to spend. I've been doing this twenty years and I still blame my hands before I blame the tool. You'd think I'd learn. The dog's still not talking to me.

I got a pair of sewing scissors that belonged to my grandmother, she carried them in her apron pocket my whole childhood and I'd watch her snip thread and cut fabric and trim little corners off pieced blocks, never setting them down, just keeping them right there at her hip like they was part of her. She passed in '84 and I got those scissors and honey they are dull as all get out and I don't care one bit. I could get them sharpened, I know I could. But it feels wrong somehow, like I'd be erasing the wear she put in them. Every little nick and gap in the blade is from her hand. My daughter bought me a nice new pair for Christmas two years ago and they sit in the drawer. I use them when I have to. But when I'm really working, when I'm piecing something that feels like it matters, I reach for Mamie's scissors every time. They pull at the fabric more than they cut it sometimes. And that's alright with me. Anybody else got a tool they keep using past when they should? Or am I just being sentimental?

Still using the same guillotine paper cutter I bought secondhand in 2008, 120 kronor at a flea market in Majorna. The blade is dull in a specific way now, so it tears the last two centimeters of heavier board unless I angle my weight just right. I've had it sharpened twice. Both times it came back worse. There's a rhythm to it I don't want to lose. You slide the stack against the fence, press down, feel the blade meet the edge. When I use a fresh cutter at the studio, everything comes out too clean. I don't trust it. Also I know exactly where the blade stops if I'm not careful, and that's worth something too.

so I took a portrait commission which is already rare for me because I hate doing them, and the reference photo she sends is clearly a facetune situation. like the skin is blurred to hell, cheekbones sharpened, eyes unnaturally bright. I paint it as close to the photo as I can because that's what she gave me. she picks it up yesterday and goes "this doesn't look like me at all." no shit. you sent me a cartoon version of yourself and I painted the cartoon. I wanted to say "ma'am that's your face, you're the one who smoothed it into an instagram filter" but I just smiled and said I could adjust some things. I hate portrait work. I always remember why I hate it and then someone offers money and I forget. never again until next time.

I've been using them sixty-two years. She already had them worn smooth when she put them in my hand at eight years old, told me "these yours now, you take care." And I did. I sharpened them myself every year, oiled the screw, never dropped them once. Today I'm cutting a scrap for a border piece and they just, wouldn't. Snagged and pulled, made that awful crunch sound through the fabric. Laid them down real gentle and just looked at them a minute. I got a new pair at the craft store this afternoon. Nice enough scissors. They don't feel like mine. Told my daughter on the phone and she said "Mama, they were scissors." I said they were her great-grandmother's hands reaching through mine, is what they were. She got quiet. Anyway. I'll keep the old pair on the shelf. They earned their rest.

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.

swept the studio today for the first time in weeks and honestly it's a documentary. there's a dried puddle of matte medium where I tried to decoupage something at 11pm and gave up. a pile of charcoal dust that only goes in one spot because I keep sharpening over the same corner like an animal. and one single screw that I have no memory of ever dropping but it's been there so long it's rusted into the wood. the floor is basically archaeology. you could date my bad moods by the paint splatters. thick and muddy = tuesday. thin and watery = I was crying or hungover, hard to tell. anyway the screw is still there. I put a pencil next to it. maybe I'll deal with it eventually. probably not.

two open ink tins, one of them definitely crusting over. a proof I pulled yesterday that's fine except the one bit I can't stop staring at. the cat asleep on the only clean bit of newsprint. a coffee mug from three days ago that I'm pretending I'll wash later. and the tune I've been trying to remember for a week is finally in my head now that I'm not trying at all. I spent the whole morning just sharpening tools. that's the whole story. didn't cut a single line. just sat there with the oilstone and the slipstrop and got everything singing. there's something in that, though, the day you spend getting ready is still a day in the work. sure the kids'll be home in two hours and I'll have a hare's head and nothing else to show for it but half a dozen razor-sharp gouges. grand. tomorrow they'll earn their keep.

Still using the same tungsten carbide chisel I bought in '96. Handle's been replaced three times. The steel is still good. Most of the young guys I see in studios are buying new sets every couple years. They think the tool wears out. It doesn't. You just have to know how to sharpen it. Spent this morning dressing it on the diamond stone. That's the real skill nobody teaches anymore. Not the swinging. The maintenance.