sedimental journey – (Lost and Found in a Reverie)
rock-pigment intaglio print on archival paper, copper printing plate and poems
Seeing printmaking as a process that inevitably unfolds repetition and singularity, can printmaking be the process to search for the in-between ground of what is archived and lost through the repetition of forms and singularity in its marks? Can a sheet of paper enfold the cyclical, reciprocal relationship of presence and absence, loss and re-emergence?
––––– TUFF
I swallow the hardest pill
when I was six.
When the gulp of water is gone, and
the pill hits the roof of my mouth,
stuck.
Enveloped in fear, choking and
paddling like a maniac when a wave breaks on you.
Overwhelming bitterness spreads from the back of my tongue.
Looking at her worried eyes,
is this how people die?
The stuck pill is real, and so was the silly question.
The fear made me ask if she could
be with me forever.
Little do I know,
nothing lasts forever.
Not the pill after another
sip of water, and
not
my mother.
––––– GRANITE
Edges, if things happen, they happen on edges.
I hate seeing things roll-off or
even touch an
edge,
probably because of the anticipatory fall
that comes
after.
On the verge of forgetting,
chaos emerges.
On the edge of grieving,
nothing submerges.
––––– HEMATITE
On the edge of
an unearthed drawing that I never dare to look at.
A room of sanitised air,
steel bed rails with glistening glare,
next to a pile of off-white pillows and
her dented bed hair.
Touch softly, glossy old photo.
Rub gently, splintery red rock.
Crush it ––
pound the pestle
Break it ––
grate the photograph with a grater,
pound the rock with a mortar.
They make deep mourning sounds.
What lies beneath a photo?
What hides in a rock?
Shattered to dust ––
a chunk fell out, golden clock
flew into pieces, sliding door
erupted from the crust, muted room
Rusty red
It was three in the morning,
they say I lost you.
It is the red that screams on the vital monitor and the dead silence after a solid beep.
Let it be. See what remains.
Pray that you don’t fuck up. It’s irrevocable now.
Ink the plate with pulverised fragments.
Place it on the press bed, roll it under the drum.
peel,
lift from the edge,
reveal,
see what remains.
Bow to fate. It’s irreversible now.
The detail is missing because you are not trying hard and
carving deep enough.
It’s always your fault. You let it fade.
Remembering is futile.
Instructions to sift a memory
Extract,
Close your eyes to see what lies beneath the lumps,
stare at the edges of a precise moment.
Filter,
Crush rocks on rocks,
pound memories on memories.
Refine,
Each strike forms sharp cuts and new edges .
Polish the copper plate and have it ready to receive,
Carefully, *do not press on the edges* –– marks will show!
Imprint an impression, transfer a reality in mind, a contour of
the heaviest sediment.
Transfer ––
maybe nothing.
Re-draw the same stroke to make a bolder mark,
re-draw until an unintentional mark made a scratch.
Bow to fate. It’s unerasable now.
Let it sit in the ferric chloride for 45 minutes,
let the acid bite, eat and munch whatever you are holding on.
A burial ground
Paper as a receiver.
Copper as a site.
Laying down
on the paper,
in the copper,
beneath the paper.
The copper kept
the hitherto warmth,
Printmaking is
remembering.
Embraces
Resists
ALL
I’m fearful of things falling apart,
imagine the amount of white glue I used to hold the Christmas ornament, a walnut shell, a hazelnut, a ribbon, cotton and felt together for twenty years.
Then,
it was a free fall ––
We don’t realise the falling until
it hits the
edge of
silence, holding back
out of breath, loss
of words.
Marks a pause
on a continuum
bridges the existence and non-existence
subtly
An assemblage of formlessness seeps through
perception and memories.
Sudden departures hold the best
memories.
When eventually, everyone becomes
stories.
I look at my hands
with the bleeding soil seeping into, staining my skin.
Warmth filled my pores, like mineral forms in porous rock
She flows in my blood,
her palm filled mine,
take the red earth in.
Even at its hardest, Tuff can be scratched with a knife blade.
Mist of powdery grey with the lightest shade.
Compose of finer fragments,
bones, volcanic ashes,
specks of dust;
a host rock for mineral veins.
Container
for something more precious,
like human ashes
with the heaviest weight.
I
am
really, really
sorry
That
I
washed
one
gum
in
the
laundry!
I
am
really, really, really
sorry
That
I
forgot
your
voice!
What is lost when you don’t remember?
