My Life as a Pencil: Decompression
Do I dread the sound of the sharpener ?
Or revel in its turning, twisting and shaving away my cedarwood encasement ?
A terrifying vibration and I am pointed, precise, prepared at the whim of the one holding me. A little exposed and vulnerable to pressures, my appearance is a delight to my master.
You might see the writing on my edges and the mustard yellow of my outer surface, my skin, and think of me as bright and sunny in disposition. but inside I am dark, 6B dark at my core.
Soft and buttery traces I leave when pressed upon and moved in contact with another surface. Most often I travel across thick papers, smooth and rough. Drawn (pun intended) across fine art paper that is archival, bumpy and rhythmic is a particularly exhilerating sensation. Feeling the shedding of my graphite charcoal body I am at once melancholy and elated, for this moment will never repeat, my molecules will not rest together in a finite space again. I dance the part of the follow to the grasp of the hand who leads me, to the music of the surfaces I glide along.
Without the hand that warms, shapes, turns, sharpens, holds …
what would I be ? Minute pieces of me are scattered throughout journals, the memories of each sketch, pattern, tracing, etched in these remaining fibres. I sense eternity in where I am and where I am going next.
Sometimes I consider where I might have come from, and how I came to be. I have heard whispers from my core that I am made of ancient compressed and fire-blackened substances.
How many hands have carried, turned and shifted materials to bring me to creation? There are others like me. I thought you would like to know.