Core meltdown

As I mentioned in my last post, the last 2 weeks were not particularly good ones. Yes, I had that show which was great but I was (am) also so overloaded with work that I have a hard time concentrating, am short on sleep (and short tempered) and generally pretty miserable. You cannot do art in such a state of mind I find. And if you try it will typically come out pretty badly. Or, even more likely, you'll make stupid mistakes which ruin a lot of work.

Case in point is latest lithography plate. Yes, there were not too many postings about lithography recently, eh? What's up with that? Well... I did 5 lithos so far and the last 2 didn't work out. It's as simple as that. The first three were mostly experiments and those worked great. But my self-portrait "chuck close style" totally "filled in" so I can maybe use that as a background some time, but not much more.

Then I did a landscape sketch using ink droplets which had the potential to become a pretty nice print. But so many things went wrong with that print that the only rational (!) explanation is that the plate was cursed. I mean really:

• the tusche didn't look right after "drawing" the image
  
• the first etch didn't appear to work
  
• when I did a washout before the second etch nothing came off in the rag which has never happened before and that freaked me out. But I decided to go forward anyway and it appeared to be fine after all.
  
• The rollup appeared to be fine but then it came out really weak (after like 12+ rolls)
• The second etch was a disaster because we ran out of etching solution and I really needed a stronger etch to start with but didn't want to handle the phosphoric acid without instruction as we hadn't made stronger etches by ourselves yet (and I didn't even know were the tools were to measure the strength of the solution)
• When I did my first test prints somebody walked off with all my proofing paper (by accident of course but that still is - erm - a problem when you are in the middle of printing)
• The I accidentially smeared a wad of grease over the whole plate
• I successfully mastered my first "wet washout" to save the plate (which is a pretty laborious and involved "rescue operation")
  
• Minutes later, right after I pull one successful proof I get a phone call (forgot to turn that darn cell phone off) and as I pick up I wipe grease all over the plate again.

That was the straw that broke the camels back. I did NOT want to go through a second wet washout with that friggin plate. I totally blew my top! I mean, how many things can reasonably go wrong in one stupid print!!! I grabbed that plate and started tearing into it - while still talking on the phone. A colleage in the shop tried to restrain me, grabbing my arm, yelling "no, don't do it". To the poor person on the phone it must have sounded like total pandaemonium up in the print room. I crumpled up the plate and that felt really good. The only thing that kept me from crumpling that darn thing into a big ball or folding it into an airplan and throwing it out the window was that the windows don't open far enough. Probably good because I might have hit somebody and this is a metal plate, after all (darn hard to fold too, even if you are acting in anger)

The only sad thing was that this was probably the best litho I had made in this course so far.