Brambles

I am opportunistic through the lens of my

camera. It teaches me to open myself to the

unfamiliar and unfathomable.

When you learn how to stop imposing your

expectations and romantic ideas upon

your situation, good things are sure to

follow.

Let your folly lead you, and with a

little luck and a good attitude, things

will go your way.

And if things don't go quite as you'd hoped,

be content in the knowledge that

they went the way you let them. Every

experience has merit, no matter

how small or seemingly insignifigant.

Learn to be open and amenable, and

the rest will come.

Brambles

June 3

Three floors, just like home. Dingey stairwells adorned with paint spills and marker signatures. Inside, it's more like an elementary school from the fifties. Light colored wood panelling along the hallway, linoleum floors. The windows are the old-fashioned tall kind that tilt inward instead of opening outright. Some seem to have been in this position for years, lending an air of timelessness to the building. Classes are still in session, tinted by the quiet kind of desperation of finals week that I know so well. A door stands ajar to my right, and I approach with soft steps. No doubt I would be taken for just another student, but loathe as I am to explain myself to strangers, I verified the vacancy of the room before tiptoeing in. Two Takach etching presses take up the majority of the middle floor. Glass-topped cabinets are ranged around the room and under the bank of tall windows opposite me. One antiquated drying rack holds proofs, collagraph and woodcut prints. Soaking tubs are balanced precariously on a countertop, rag papers swimming around, waiting for someone to return for them. A clothesline of stiff inky tarlatans hangs in front of the windows, the most important sort of laundry in a place like this. All over the walls, photos and snippets of paper depict the small community of printmakers that frequent this studio. I take one last look, a last breath of that inky, chemistry scent and duck out before I am discovered.


The only open door on that floor was
this one. Sometimes, if you stop looking
the universe will provide you with
just the thing you seek.