‘We read to remember. We read to forget. We read to make ourselves and remake ourselves and save ourselves. “I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life,” Mary Oliver wrote in looking back on how books saved her. Most of all, we read to become selves. The wondrous gift of reading is that books can become both the life-raft to keep us from drowning and the very water that sculpts the riverbed of our lives, bending it this direction or that, traversing great distances and tessellated territories of being, chiseling through even the hardest rock.’
Maria Popova, “Jane Goodall’s Lovely Letter to Children About How Reading Shaped Her Life“, The Marginalian
Change “read” to “paint” or “draw”, and “book” to “art”.
“The wondrous gift of [drawing and painting] is that [art] can become both the life-raft to keep us from drowning and the very water that sculpts the riverbed of our lives…‘
Nearly a year without the in-house art critic as my living anchor and balloon, helping me soar and keeping me secure, art has been a life-raft that some days bobs me around on a calm sea and other times is an unsteady refuge in a tumultuous whirlpool. Some days I don’t actively use it, but it’s always there.
This past week I have been playing with blind embossing using string again, on the Gunning printing press Alistair encourage me to buy (he sent me the link when a local printmaker said they were selling it). I have had it upgraded to a geared mechanism and it now takes minimal energy to use. I can hear him say: “Told you it was a good idea.” And I can see him on his computer researching types of string and rope to buy as a surprise. While I can’t buy myself a suprise present, the moment in printmaking when you lift the blankets and paper to see the result is always a suprise.
(((Hugs)))
Thank you. 💕