Lauren’s Beans

So I finished my prints!  I’ve been working on them for more than a year now so I feel kind of silly.  I almost didn’t want to finish them.  The feel of process is entirely enthralling.  While I’m creating a print I get to work through an idea until I’ve totally absorbed it.  When I draw I feel as though I am working through the idea or the image as well but I can never make the feeling, the process last as long.  When I draw there is a point at which I am always afraid I will ruin the drawing by adding something.  Watching the picture form I am expectant, breathless but, then there is a point at which I shrink from drawing anymore because the essence of the image that I see is captured and I am afraid that one more pencil stroke will add more noise will make the picture irrelavant.  Even if the drawing isn’t a good one I feel this way, it’s like there is a point of no return with drawing after which the picture is either good or bad and you either throw it away or decide to be content.

Prints on the other hand take more time.  Each line takes work.  You sketch, you think, you plan, and then you carve and test and test again and carve and test and test again until the picture is complete, until it is right.  For me the expectation has great value.  The process is sobering, enthralling, rythmic like dancing but less exuberant.

A good ten years ago now my dad decided that Christmas was too depressing the way we did it.  Not that Christmas was ever bad at our house, he just decided it didn’t last long enough.  So that year my dad purposed that we have Christmas for 7 days from Christmas Day until New Years.  We accomplished this by opening the stockings and grandparent gifts on Christmas Day and then opening a gift from another member of the family for each of the following days…there were only 5 of us so then we added a couple theme days… movie day, and game day.  So from that christmas on if we are at home Christmas lasts for 7 days.  There is certainly a peak thrill to Christmas all in one day that you don’t quite achieve with Christmas in 7 days, but the 7 days of expectation and gift opening and festivalness are certainly worth the exchange.  This is partially the same feeling I have for printmaking vs. drawing the thrill may not be as zingy but the enjoyment is more thorough.

and that’s my thoughts about that.  It rained today, I really like rain.  The world as seen from under an umbrella is fantastic.  The ducks in the park were liberated from their usual hide out on the island in the middle of the park lagoon because of the rain, they seemed quite happy…the geese too.  Italians don’t really differentiate between big ducks and geese.  The poor geese are always stripped of what little dignity they have and called ducks.

In Italian instead of saying peek-a-boo I got told yesterday that you say something to the gist of – pat-ta-toom-fit-ay