Carving Out Time

It felt indulgent when I booked it. Four weeks, twelve hours in total off duty, and on Saturdays. Weekends do not feel like ours to enjoy but a chance to reset, catch up and maybe rest. With three children in school ( and in three different schools) there's a lot of treading water, lots of spinning plates and probably many more metaphors just to keep things ticking over. In short life is busy. It's easy to talk ourselves out of things.

Sketchbook open, generating ideas for the wood block

I signed up to take a wood engraving class because I'd never used the Columbian Printing Press in the studio at Seacourt before. I was conscious of a feeling of needing to rein in what I was doing, to narrow down and just do one thing well*. I'd never really warmed to lino printing, if I couldn't decide what to put my energy and focus into I could at least rule relief printing out. Until now.

The quiet concentration required for wood engraving mixed with the feeling of jeopardy ( this wood feels precious in a way that lino never could) is addictive.

By it's very nature, engraving invites, no asks that you slow down. A lapse in concentration could ruin everything. Then the realisation that there is so much scope for worlds within worlds on each tiny block. Like a game of chess every move in the form of a mark made throwing up questions of what your next move will be. It's incredible. It was sold to me by Peter Brown the course tutor that if you enjoy embroidery you'll enjoy wood engraving, and he wasn't wrong.

My wood engraving of a sunflower

The process from start to finish is edifying. The end grain wood prepared for printing by Chis Daunt is a work of art in itself. My mum had given me the sunflowers in August from her garden, I drew them when they were in their prime and printed them in the depths of winter. For me, being able to hold on to the memory of something so simple and special and reproduce the image months later is part of the magic of print. In a world that moves all too quickly, I swear sometimes I can feel it spinning, print is the antidote. I'm so glad I carved out the time to learn this new skill.

This print is available from Seacourt Print Workshop if you're local to Bangor County Down, or from me directly. Just get in touch.

For now though, won't you tell me what you carve out time for and what you're looking forward to next?

*this is deserving of a conversation all of it's own, I'd love to hear your thoughts!