adventures with a stapler
So I've experienced a lot of trouble involving staplers this last week. No, my name is not Milton, thank you very much. But my name is not Mud, either, so I still carry on.
I am an oil painter, among other things, and make my own canvases. Each year, I try to make at least one, for an art show my friend Danny puts on called Nude. I decided to dig the pieces of a stretcher frame out of the shed and put together a giant frame to make a giant painting. A few weeks ago, when the weather was nice, I did all this, with a few trips to Lowe's and digging around in my studio.
This week, I tried to stretch the canvas over the frame, and this involves a staple gun. I bought a new electric one, because I have small hands and using a manual one causes them to get tired, when making giant canvases. However, after 5 staples, it just stopped working. I promptly mailed it's ass back to the manufacturer, but was without a staple gun. (I have bought at least 3 over the years, some have been stolen, some lost by me). So I call my friend to see if I can borrow hers- turns out, it's a little smaller than standard size and I cannot find a staple in town that will fit the darned thing. After this realization, I decide to go ahead and just buy another manual gun, the $10 variety.
Finally, around 6pm last night, my assistant (read: boyfriend) and I proceeded to staple away and finally got the thing stretched. And boy, is it a beauty- tight as a drum, just begging for some gesso. (For those non-painters, gesso is just an acrylic primer used to cover the surface of an oil canvas, so the oil doesn't seep through the back.) The plan was to put the first coat on this morning before I had to go to work, but unless I wanted the neighborhood cats, limbs and dirt to be stuck to it, I had to wait.
I like to remind myself that these little "bumps" are what Steven Pressfield calls "the Resistance" in his book The War of Art. This book was recommended to me by one of our interlibrary loan librarians who is also a writer- she truly understands what it is to be tempted by life NOT to fulfill your creative calling. There are so many excuses we can make to not do stuff we were born to do. So let this be an inspiration to you creative minds out there- just because you staple stuff to your face doesn't mean you should let that deter you from your cause.
I am an oil painter, among other things, and make my own canvases. Each year, I try to make at least one, for an art show my friend Danny puts on called Nude. I decided to dig the pieces of a stretcher frame out of the shed and put together a giant frame to make a giant painting. A few weeks ago, when the weather was nice, I did all this, with a few trips to Lowe's and digging around in my studio.
This week, I tried to stretch the canvas over the frame, and this involves a staple gun. I bought a new electric one, because I have small hands and using a manual one causes them to get tired, when making giant canvases. However, after 5 staples, it just stopped working. I promptly mailed it's ass back to the manufacturer, but was without a staple gun. (I have bought at least 3 over the years, some have been stolen, some lost by me). So I call my friend to see if I can borrow hers- turns out, it's a little smaller than standard size and I cannot find a staple in town that will fit the darned thing. After this realization, I decide to go ahead and just buy another manual gun, the $10 variety.
Finally, around 6pm last night, my assistant (read: boyfriend) and I proceeded to staple away and finally got the thing stretched. And boy, is it a beauty- tight as a drum, just begging for some gesso. (For those non-painters, gesso is just an acrylic primer used to cover the surface of an oil canvas, so the oil doesn't seep through the back.) The plan was to put the first coat on this morning before I had to go to work, but unless I wanted the neighborhood cats, limbs and dirt to be stuck to it, I had to wait.
I like to remind myself that these little "bumps" are what Steven Pressfield calls "the Resistance" in his book The War of Art. This book was recommended to me by one of our interlibrary loan librarians who is also a writer- she truly understands what it is to be tempted by life NOT to fulfill your creative calling. There are so many excuses we can make to not do stuff we were born to do. So let this be an inspiration to you creative minds out there- just because you staple stuff to your face doesn't mean you should let that deter you from your cause.