repetition
I'm always getting ahead of myself: planning everything, needing it to happen now. Thinking about new hang tags to design and print, new labels. New drawings. Installations I want to make. Galleries to contact. Essays I have brewing (but never sit down to write). All the baby clothes floating around in my head, now that one of my best friends is pregnant, not to mention the maternity clothes and the normal-old-clothes always in there. Sometimes all the choices I give myself are overwhelming, and I find myself in stasis.
Printing was always a good thing for that, especially my dear lithography, because it demands precision, waiting periods, order. No skipping steps if you want the stone to etch.
I miss the smell of the printshop (lithotine, mineral spirits; the graining room's particular, gritty smell; liquid hard ground, hot ink, ferric chloride) and the textures of tarlatan, stone, copper. The certain calm of working. I'm glad to know that I'll be back in a shop one day. Maybe soon.
For now I'm happy to use his press to make some little cards for my mom. Pull the arm down (slow, for me, because I'm too short and light), pull out the card, replace the paper, ink the type; repeat.
Pattern and repetition: no better way to get out of the panicky feeling of too many things I should do, regret for things I can't do right now.
I continue to make drawings every day of my clothes and environment. I'm trying not to think about these being anything but what they are, which is a reminder of where I've been; what my clothes mean to me; how my outlook on color, pattern, and shape has changed; how my understanding of anatomy has improved. They're a great lesson in accumulation, the power of many small things together. Doing the action of drawing over and over is what makes the work.
Thanks again (!) for your words for my mom. And thanks for the jumper-buying. My mom just grinned a huge grin when I told her, then gave me the thumbs-up.
--
I've got some news I want to write about, but I'm exhausted and I want to give it its due, so I'll do it next time. Or the time after.
Hope you're well. Take care.
posted by eireann at
6:06 AM
6 Comments:
I'm so glad your mom was pleased with the jumper sales. She's still in my prayers.
You are such a mysterious woman. And now I can't drag it out of you this Tuesday. Feel sorry for a cripple and tell me your secret. :)
Glad your mom is doing better. I hate that she's even there at all--I was reminded this weekend just how scary hospitals can be.
Miss you all this Tuesday. I need my weekly dose of Eireann and poetry.
You know your drawings and sketches of your clothing are really lovely... I find the most beautiful artwork is usually of the "everyday" things; I think because it causes us to see the inherant beauty in the things our eyes are accustomed to seeing daily. Suddenly lines, colors and features jump out and make us stop and consider the design rather than just allow our eyes to skim and our brain to not really stop and process what we're seeing! :) Thank you for posting these little artworks; I really enjoy seeing them. :)
I'm glad to hear your mom is doing better; you both are still in my thoughts!! :)
Printing... slow, methodical processes. Drawing, documenting, and ideas swirling. I, too, love to spend my days inwardly turned.
Happy creating to you. Oh, and your Mom's clothes are beautiful... beautiful.
take care, grache
I just found you in flickr and I really like what you do.
So glad I came across it :)
Congratulations for your drawings!
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