Tuesday 7 July 2015

Wasp Waste



Going through a pile of old papers, I came across two unfinished scraperboard pictures of wasps.  I'd completely forgotten about them; not surprising, as I must have abandoned them about fifteen years ago.  As far as I can recall, these are the only two forays into that medium I have ever made.

I used to be an admirer of woodcuts and wood engravings; as I write this, I am sitting beneath three framed Clare Leighton engravings -- pages from The Farmer's Year -- that I rescued from a secondhand book shop.  My recollection is that I thought scraperboard might be a way of getting to the attractively crisp end result of engraving without going through the tedious and messy process of actual printmaking, something I know a little about.


For years, I used to make linocuts and woodcuts.  When I was about 17 I actually dared to venture into the premises of printmaking suppliers T.N. Lawrence, when it was still located up an external staircase in Bleeding Heart Yard in London.  Old man Lawrence was notorious for chasing away anyone he didn't like.  Luckily, he did like the cut of my jib, and helped me choose some wood-engraving tools.  However, much as I enjoyed cutting away bits of lino and plank, the process of working up the ink on an old mirror with a roller, inking up the block, and taking an impression on paper (using the back of a spoon in the absence of a press) -- not to mention subsequently cleaning up the whole inky lot -- was a messy business and not really suited to a two-bedroom council flat.  My mother would despair when ink found its way into the crazed enamel of our kitchen sink.

Two-colour linocut, 1979

I kept up the printmaking into early adult life, though, and later on I thought etching might be worth a try, so signed up for evening classes.  I managed a few completed test-pieces -- all featuring wasps -- before deciding that this elaborately ceremonial "intaglio" process elevated the fussiness of printmaking to the pitch of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, if not beyond, and gave it up.  It's no wonder that most "name" artists employ a specialist studio to do the actual skilled, repetitive, dirty work of making editioned prints for them to sign and number.  It's one of the guilty secrets of art.  Making some nice marks into a wax-covered sheet of metal is one thing; etching it in a tray of acid to just the right degree of "bite", then inking it, wiping off just the right amount of ink, and then experimentally adjusting the blankets in the press to find just the right pressure to yield a perfect impression on a carefully pre-soaked sheet of (very expensive) paper is quite another.  However, in the process of exploring etching I did discover the darkroom, which is another story.

But why ... wasps?  Why, indeed.  If only I could have developed a more popular obsession -- oh, I don't know, people, maybe, or even bees -- then I might have got a more encouraging reaction than "huh..." to my efforts, and gone on to produce the hundreds of prints -- those famous 10,000 hours -- that form the bedrock of real accomplishment.  After all, people have built whole careers out of making linocuts of bloody hares for greetings cards.  But wasps just don't have that irresistible combination of mystic folksiness and prick-eared cuteness going on for them.

As it is, I don't think I've made a print of any sort -- other than photographs -- since I turned 30 in 1984, though my recent efforts at digital collage might be seen as a return to that earlier impulse.  But no wasps this time!  Although....  Those scraperboards are just waiting to be incorporated into something new.  It would be a shame to waste them.

Addendum 8/7/15:  I suddenly remembered one possible influence on my focus on wasps.  A book that shaped me more than most was The Albemarle Book of Modern Verse, an O-Level set text that included many worthwhile poems, as well as some astonishing but memorable rubbish.  An example of the latter contained these lines, much of which I can recite to this day:
There's not a rhyme to wasp in English tongue.
Poor wasp, unloved, unsung!
Only the homely proverb celebrates
These little dragons of the summer day
That each man hates.
'Wasps haunt the honey-pot,' they say,
Or 'Put your hand into a wasps' nest,' thus
Neatly condensing all report for us
By sharp experience into wisdom stung,
As is the proverb's way.

    Of many a man it might be said
    No one loved him till he was dead,
    But of a wasp not even then
    As it is said of many men.

 

 Vita Sackville-West, The Garden

9 comments:

Kent Wiley said...

I too toyed with lino and wood block cuts in my yoot. Can't recall whatsoever what the subject matter might have been, but it probably wasn't anything naturalistic, since I can't draw. But wasps? Curious indeed.

What I really want to know about is The Albemarle Book of Modern Verse. No doubt I could look it up, but I'm going to wait for a good Chisholm story instead. What's the name from? We live in Albemarle County, Virginia. Alas, I don't really know where that comes from either. So many unknowns...Probably time now for a nap.

Mike C. said...

Kent,

I keep meaning to try and find a copy, but there are surprisingly few around -- it was a set text in 1968 (and presumably before) so probably most copies got wrecked and binned. It contained e.e. cummings, Dylan Thomas, Louis MacNeice, as well as turkeys like Sackville-West.

There are some on abebooks, but I'm not sure it's the right edition. I assume Albemarle was a publisher, but don't know for sure.

Mike

Adam Long said...

Perhaps wasps might be more popular if they did, indeed, make waspard: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VSzdAgAAQBAJ&lpg=PT47&ots=L-cIDXR8qn&dq=waspard&pg=PT47#v=onepage&q&f=false

Mike C. said...

Adam,

Of course, wasps *do* make paper -- I wonder if anyone's ever tried to domesticate and selectively breed wasps to make, say, egg boxes or sheets of A4?

I think the terrifying thing about wasps is their relentlessness...

Mike

Zouk Delors said...

Apart from "Do not go gentle into that good night", that's the only opening line I (half-) remember from that book. It's a fascinating fact though, isn't it?

Also:
If you mess with a wasp it'll ...
Maybe see you to hospital!

Mike C. said...

Zouk,

I bet there's more... Who could forget "toadstools burst like boils between the toes of the trees" (Norman Nicholson, or "the queer old balloonman whistles far and wee" (e.e. cummings)? And I *know* you remember "The Naming of Parts" by Henry Reed, because it's come up before on this blog!

Mike

Zouk Delors said...

Well, for the first two, the answer to your question is: "Me!"; I don't even recognize them now. As for "The Naming of Parts", yes I remember it well -- though not so well as to recite it beyond the first line -- but I'd forgotten that that's where I first met it!

Martyn Cornell said...

Metathesis it appears, turned Anglo-Saxon "wapse" into "wasp" – if it hadn't we'd have plenty of rhymes.

Mike C. said...

Martyn,

Well, according to Vita S-W:

They came, destructive though we sought their nest,
Those fiends that rustic oracles call wopse.

My dad often said "wopse", in his ironic-joking manner (see earlier post), but it wouldn't surprise me if this was a reflection of his Baldock relatives' pronunciation...

I seem to recall something similar about "thrids" and "thirds" on your "three threads" post.

Mike