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Hassles in heart.
12.30.23 – Surzé
He did it in paper. Trimmed the edges so they didn’t tear and sung instead. It wasn’t fine to unfold without care as the whole thing was as fragile as it looked. He’d abandoned a unique pattern and sought instead a theme to tuck each bend into. The faces had to be teased out through soft poking and softer pinching. It deformed like wet clay. If he held it well enough you couldn’t see any creases, instead they came out like dents or were split into ligature both of which didn’t seem possible in such an uncompromising material. We knew it would bruise because all of our attempts to replicate the process always turned out with pockmarks that stained the final shape. He held secrets that could coax out something far more pliable than we thought possible.
He was unafraid to trim, to slice, to remove the hard points that might break the angles or mar the curves. A clever language was expressed in those whispered movements, like a parent coaxing a nervous child. Support allowed such transformations to take place. Brute force resulted in retained traumas. For the unpracticed it was borne of anger at not finding the right touch to turn the shape over. Trial and error left one in shambles, shredding efforts to bits without making so much as a clear decision for that finished piece. It was easy to extinguish and so some pretended like there was no failure since they’d never made an attempt, but that man could replace the empty space with something far more bewitching and knowing that marvel existed always led me to try once more.
-VGB-