The Name in My Mouth
I am greeting my most beloved process anew at a key time in my life.
I am a printmaker in my most intimate creative practice. I love collaborating with the surfaces I carve or stencil, the paper upon which I print, and the humidity of the very air I breathe while working. So much is at play as I work that I cannot even once get big-headed about the results.
After we all come together and create an edition of work, I then get to distribute that work to however many people I can, limited only by the number of finished pieces. After such a wonderful collective effort, it just seems fair to have ENOUGH, if not TOO MANY. I have certainly created one-offs in my time but they never feel as real as the completed gesture of a pulled print.
Ever since my wife had our daughter, I have found scraps of time here and there for printing. My child person turned 11 this year, and is finding moments of independence more and more. As I find myself less on call, I wander down into the basement where I set up a studio more often. Since Christmas, I finally and truly refined the space into a real and working space. I am getting my art practice back in full as my daughter needs me a wee bit less. I am both mourning and ecstatic.
Coming back to my art as a mature mom, I have a clarity I never knew I could have. The fluff is gone. I am working to send the signals I thought too hokey, the signs I found too true. I am now 52 and can see that the work I made earlier had some impact, but now? I want it to land, to create the change I kept saying I wanted to see back in my 20s and 30s. I have no more visions of international fame, I am intent of leaving a legacy of unabashed love for my child and her children to sift through and savor. I want to use the tools I was born with to at long last say out loud what I mumbled before. There is no more time to waste on style, posture, or status.
I carved a piece of styrofoam a while back in a fit of creative mania to make a print I just unearthed this morning. I chose to do a reduction print, carving, then printing, then carving and printing for each successive color. The cheap material was just perfect, letting me haul ass and capture the compulsion of my idea. The name in my mouth is LOVE! The reason I get up and fight for good is LOVE!
Yes, it was fevered and silly and artless. The edition was tiny—a mere 10 prints when I used to shoot for 150 at least. I can send the image out online and get that coverage if I really need the dopamine. What matters now is the making, the sending of signals to my child in her future from my best self now. I feel my art returning in full, giving me the strength to continue to give of myself with the intensity my child’s needs pulled out of me.
The name in my mouth is the same as that on my heart. Love.
"I am both mourning and ecstatic." I understand that perfectly.