Last week, all these things happened: it rained monsoon-style for a whole week, my best friend from college visited, Gus went out of town, the kindergarten-end-of-year madness continued, I went to the the police station to be fingerprinted (more on that later...), and I frantically hired a babysitter so I could take another printing workshop with local artist Denise Kester.
The last workshop I took from Denise was monoprinting.
This one was centered around drawing on tracing paper with conte crayon and then using your drawing with layers of waterbased ink.
It had been such a harried week that I hadn't had a chance to do the drawings I wanted until 9:00 the night before. My dear friend, who was to leave at 5:30 am the next morning, valiantly sat with me. Alas, I hadn't even gotten a few marks down before Theo came downstairs in hysterics, listing every excuse he had as to why he couldn't go to sleep.
I couldn't believe it...and in retrospect it was my fault, for I had let both of them stay up too late and they were really, really tired.
After Theo's best, most dramatic excuse (he claimed the bones in his face were pushing his eyeball out), I wanted to shout, "Hey, I've helped you the whole day...washed, clothed, and fed you, entertained you. And now, please, I just want to do something for myself, I just want to do some drawing, take a couple hours tomorrow to see what printing is like....!" I admit it: I was mad and frustrated. My friend was looking at me with round, worried eyes.
But then I got a grip and took the volcano upstairs to where Josephine was wailing herself. Taking a deep breath, I told them I was going to give them "special medicine" to help their various complaints. I rummaged dramatically around in the bathroom for a long time. I could hear them hiccuping and crying, but listening, wondering what I was doing. Then I returned, and gravely gave Theo three little non-descript arnica beads. Josephine got one arnica bead and a glass of "magic" water. I also brought some lavender oil and told them they could have this special sleep "potion"--only if they wanted it though-- on their pillows.
And you know what? It worked! They calmed down and went to sleep.
Ergo, I made it to the printing workshop, which wasn't without its moments of crazy action. (In fact I was moving so fast, I actually forgot to put paper on one of my plates and, sadly, printed off a beautiful piece on newsprint.) One of the other participants called me "whacky." I'm not sure what to make of that.
But here's what I learned: to treat printing as printing, and explore what you could do with printing that you couldn't do with any other medium. Therefore I really used the idea of multiples and embossing, exploring large patches of ink where you could see the roller marks and ghost shadows.
And here's what I also learned: that parenting is maddening but also a creative act within itself, that you are always turning the wheel, trying to keep cool, trying new techniques, some which work and some which don't, all in the presentness of time.
this is a beautiful post, julia. so true and well said. and you know what? you are whacky. in the best possible way. love, jess
Posted by: jessica bandstra | 06/14/2011 at 10:06 AM