Task #4
This week's task was to choose a five-letter word and print it twice using potato stamps. The word cannot have repeated letters. Try to make both copies as identical to each other as possible.
The Great Potatoe Massacre of 2019
Was there something particularly challenging in the process?
A better question would be ‘What was not challenging about this process?’.
I originally approached this as a fun craft project, only to find that it could quickly become complex and exacting. If I were to pick one biggest challenge it would be the requirement to make the stamps identical. This covers most of the complexities encountered.
Originally, I thought I would make a stencil to use on both pieces of potato, that stencil got wet and fell apart on the first stamp. I thought I could use the first stamp to be the stencil for the second, but that wouldn’t give me the reverse image I needed, some sort of engineering degree would be required.
I ended up drawing the letters free hand. The original stencil helped as I was completely incapable of visualizing how the revers image should look. Thank goodness for windows and my excellent tracing abilities to create myself a visual guide.
Even if I had been able to create two identical drawings on each stamp many other details affected my ability to make the stamps identical. As meticulous as I tried to be cutting the stamps, it would take a lot of time and practice to make my cuts matching in depth and length. Once the stamps were cut the next issue would be the paint itself; how to get the same amount on each stamp, or how to use the same amount of pressure to press the stamp onto the paper. So many variables, so much time. No standardization. Two unmatched stamps.
The Sad Demise of the Potatoe Stamp
A Visual Text
How much time did it take for you to create the stamps?
In all honesty, it took me about a day to make the stamps.
Most of that was due to a friend’s hint ‘make sure your potato is dry before you start. So, I cut them in half and left them overnight to dry out. Note to friend, it doesn’t work once you start carving it again leaks all over the place.
Leaving out the ‘potato prep time’ it took about 30 min to carve the first stamp. The second stamp I was much more practiced and braver, it only took about 15 minutes part of which was comparing the two and trying to chip away at them to match.
It’s really given me an appreciation of the need to be meticulous and patient; of how labour intensive initial text technologies must have been.
Have you noticed anything particular about the letters that you have chosen to reproduce?
I thought I was being really smart by choosing to use capital letters (I was worried about the dot on the ‘I’). What I should have done was to use block letters. Curves were hard to form and match, especially double curves like the ‘s’. Letters like the ‘p’ with a hole in the middle were quite difficult especially as I was trying not to cut off any part of other letters. Mostly I noted with my first (too small) potato was that some of my spacing between letters was tiny and often uneven. I took a lot of care with the second stamp to standardize that and give myself room to work without endangering parts of letters. The idea of one accidental slice and starting over again was always in the forefront.
Well, this will mark the longest time I have ever spent at the market comparing potatoes. I’m sure I must have looked quite absurd picking up potatoes and checking for shape, longest cutting angle. Yet somehow, I completely missed those large plain brown baking potatoes, going for the cute smaller russet potatoes we usually buy. Sadly, in this case, size matters.
​
For my five-letter word, I chose 'chips' to foreshadow the potatoes' ultimate demise
Considering the time and effort that took you to create a 5-letter word, how do you feel about the mechanization of writing?
I love the mechanization of writing. I am so glad to be living in an age where we can so easily create, standardize, copy, and transmit writing with such ease. If I lived in an age where stamps were used to write – I would be illiterate. It may be that I am used to our ease in writing, but I don’t think I would have had the skill, patience, and meticulousness to produce any writing.
Thinking about it in another way, cost and economy. If it takes me an average of 20 minutes to produce a one-word stamp. This 300-word assignment would be an expensive proposition. I would have to bill you for about 100hrs of labour and hand it in around Christmas time.
