Fox thought.

Today I worked for eight hours in complete silence. I have never done that before. It is not to say that I was upset or angry or even the slightest bit bothered, I just needed a quiet day. So I sliced cucumbers and tomatoes and made three kinds of salad dressing and kneaded dough and sprinkled coconut on things and stirred five gallon pails of stuff in utter silence. It was nice hearing my hands at work. Everyone else was thrown for a loop by my tranquility and were quiet as well. Four pairs of hands working at once.

For the better part of the morning I was quite blank, content simply stirring and ticking things off my list one contented tick at a time; smiling a modest smile, getting shit done in the kitchen of the bakery with my apron getting filthier as the hour hand pressed on into the day. In the afternoon I spent a great deal of time thinking about graphic design and printing and printmaking and one illustration by Matte Stephens in particular.




This untitled image bobbed around the forefront of my head for a number of hours today and it's not the first time I have spent time thinking about it either. For the past few days I have come back to it, turned it over and over in my head as if this is the end-all be-all of art. It is just a simple suit clad fox with graphic, colorful smoke pouring out of his smoking pipe but it has wedged itself on some prized showcase shelf in my head. I don't know what it is about it; I cannot for the life of me put my finger on it. But I like it and I wanted to share it.

I wish I wasn't so careful and obsessive when it comes to freehand drawing. The Fox illustration is such a simple piece if you think of it and really look at it. The colors would be very time consuming to mix just so, to find the perfect blend of pure color and dirty color but still nothing comes when I sit down to draw. This is just something I have been frustrated with lately. Painting is easier, but this drawing business is something else altogether. Sometimes on days like today when my hands are setting the pace of my thought process with menial tasks like mincing garlic or chopping parsley or scrubbing cast iron, I let myself dream about making a living (paycheck to paycheck of course) doing something I love like printmaking, or cooking or illustrating. I often forget that people actually get paid for those things. Wild.

All of this is meaningless, I just felt like writing it down.