Wednesday, February 3, 2010


Last year I made a little sign for over my desk with a Flaubert quote about writing that seemed really significant for my life: "Be neat and orderly in your life, like a bourgeois, so that you may be creative and violent in your work." I paired the quote with a demon of Bosch's. I never inked the sign and I tried to display it aspirationally but it was just ironic. If you go to the post I linked you'll see. Keeping things orderly doesn't come naturally but if I have a little bit of energy and free time in my life I can do it well.

I've been keeping my room pretty well, because I have a roommate and I finally have enough storage containers for my things. But slowly, entropically, the drawers and bags and boxes and briefcases and suitcases get mixed, things left out of those cluttered my shelves and desk. But this week I did three good cleaning sessions and got everything put into little containers and if neccessary labeled and all my laundry is clean and I came across the little Flaubert/Bosch sign I'd carried from house to house for a year and I felt like I'd earned it. I sat down with my brushes and ink and set to work. And my stupid left hand knocked over the ink and the sign was ruined.
Over an hour of filling in the background with white paint and rearranging the letters and it is a significantly better piece if you like being interested by the things you look at. Which I do. Also better if you like font to mirror its own content. Which I don't. I'd cleaned up before the background layer of paint where "may" should be was dry so that's for later. Possibly while I add that the sign will get accidentally set on fire and end up amazingly crafted.

Perfect.

1 comment:

Robert van de Walle said...

Wow, that splash is perfect!!! What a piece!