Scribbled Lives Week 17—Impressions

When artwork is complete, there’s the satisfying ritual of adding my Chinese signature. Press chop in cinnabar paste, breathe on paste to humidify, position on artwork, press, rock, and lift.

Although the chop was carved many years ago, I only started using it on artwork in 2020.

The topic this week is impressions. Whether we used a single signature chop or the repetition of a homemade and hand carved stamp, members were asked to celebrate the magic of impressions by creating a rubber stamp or finding a creative use for an existing one by integrating it into artwork.

All the rubber stamps in my collection are from another age. Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends weren’t the characters I planned to build fine art around! Although that would be an interesting prospect. Hmmm…

After hunting around the studio, some creative options emerged—a set of metal punches and my signature chop. The metal punches feature letters and numbers and are intended to be used by craftspeople to identify their wood and metal creations.

The punches—4 mm tall—worked best on heavy paper dampened with water. After experimenting on several trials and completing a final, I took a closer look at what I thought was rough watercolour paper. It turned out to be cotton linter—used for paper making! Ah well, carry on…

The chop made a better impression while paper was wet; however, the thumbprint was clearer after paper had dried. Cotton linter is mysterious… And since it has no sizing, I didn’t even try erasing!

And lastly, I added my thumbprint. A most personal impression!

“Human identity is the most fragile thing that we have; it is often only found in moments of truth.” Alan Rudolph