Yesterday, weirdly, all the welding stars aligned for me. Everything just went perfectly. I drew out my first semi circle and cut it exactly on the lines, no blown cutter tips, no waver. Then I cut the second piece, matched perfectly. I had to bend each one by hand. This takes some strength and very often one is bent differently, warped more one direction or the other, bent more severely, etc. Nope. They matched up exactly. Not only that, but once I looked more closely, there is a rusted image of a bird on one of the sections. I draw on the steel with chalk and months ago had just put this piece aside while working on a bird bath. When the chalk washed off in the weather my sketch lines rusted. Cool huh?
Also, I have to say, these are some sweet welds. It just hardly ever happens that every single thing goes perfectly. Usually things take a hundred times longer than you expect, equipment fails, or you do; your hand shakes or your arm moves or you breath wrong. Yesterday was just a really great welding day.
And I'm very grateful because the day before I was having one of those crisis's of confidence we artist types suffer from occasionally. I did work on my revision of Dirt Nap and got some good stuff down, but was just hearing that voice saying, "Who do you think you are? you'll never get anywhere with this -- you suck!" Well, "Shut up little voice -- you suck." Not one of my snappier come backs but for now it'll do. This was more of a technical than creative victory, but I did bring what had only existed in my head into physical form pretty much unaltered, and, as I worked with my tools and enjoyed my proficiency with them, my characters began speaking to me again too. Thanks universe!
Play "Little Room" by The White Stripes in the player for Jack White's take on this process -- getting your creative mojo restored.
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