A Case for Blotter Art
Copyright 2005 Mary Desaulniers
There are moments in our past that shape our vision. Going
through my childhood photo albums, I catch a glimpse of Anna in
the early grades, a quiet girl who, if she were still alive,
does not know how even in grade 4, she was pointing the way to
freedom of expression. There is a lesson here that comes in
handy for parents and grandparents.
I have often wondered if Anna's life might have taken a
different turn had she lived her early grades in the sixties
when the ballpoint pen, replacing the fountain pen, dispensed
with the use of ink blotters in school. Children of the fifties,
we learnt writing the hard way--with steel-nibbed pens which we
dipped in ink pots and which invariably turned the writing
experience into a mud-bath. It took us months to learn the art
of compromise: speed meant accidental globs and splotches; if
you really wanted to save time, you would be far wiser to play
the tortoise.
But Anna was no turtle. Her mind moved faster than light; she
was figuring a way to Bali when we were still stuck in the grade
3 reader; in the fourth grade, when those of us with older
siblings were all agog over Elvis, she could find nothing more
passionate than Japanese prints.
I remember Sister Mary Michael, the composition teacher in grade
4, who told us that writing was an act of God and that the true
writer would find his share of godliness in the holy trinity of
pen, paper and blotter. Of the three, the blotter was the most
indispensable. "Why?" we asked. "Good writing depends on the way
you control the ink." There was much else that needed to be
controlled as well, according to Sister Mary Michael. Reading
Anna's essay on why she liked chocolates, Sister became very
still and angular. She peered down at the child, her eyes blue
and hard above her spectacles. "Too many adjectives," she
snapped. "Too many words!"
When Anna looked at her, unmoved, Sister retrieved her pen. The
nib drew a fast, thin line over Anna's script; the blotter
followed; there came more red lines, more words slashed away.
I watched Anna after she returned to her desk. She began
writing, dabbing the blotter after her pen in true Sister Mary
Michael fashion. For a while, it seemed as though Anna had
learnt her lesson. But when I peered more closely over her
shoulder, I noticed that it was the blotter that was absorbing
her interest. She had dribbled a spot on the top right-hand
corner of the sheet; she stuck the nib in the center of the spot
and watched the darkness grow; a few details with the nib and
the blotch became a piece of chocolate, its center dissolving
into a hole. Fascinated, I watched her work more blotches on the
absorbent paper and more dabs until the entire blotter turned
into a kind of chocolate swiss-cheese.
Out of her desk came more blotter sheets. Instead of holes, she
made lines this time, dark molasses lines dribbled and dripped
almost spider fashion from one corner to the next; she paused
just long enough to thicken the middle stretch without breaking
the flow until the entire sheet became criss-crossed with tubes
of varying lengths and widths and the blotter sat on her desk
like a chocolate web.
It was an early version of blotter art, so distinctive it made
your hair stand on end. But Sister Mary Michael could not quite
see that.
"What on earth are you doing?" she asked, appalled, staring at
the blotters on Anna's desk. The girl held up her last completed
sheet; it was a masterpiece, composed entirely of lines, thick
and thin, straight and wavy radiating from a field of chocolate
centers, such that when you looked at the whole, you could feel
a shift in balance, as though you were being absorbed into the
thick of things.
"Young lady," said Sister, breaking the silence. "Do you think
that God intended us to use blotters in this fashion?" Anna's
face dropped. "Do you think that God would have approved of
this?"
"No," said Anna eventually.
"Why not ?"
"I don't think he likes chocolates."
Anna left school after grade 6. We did not keep in touch and I
had almost forgotten her until years later, when I flipped
through a huge and glossy "History of Modern Art" and was
stopped mid-track by Jackson Pollock; there was in his work
inescapable shades of Anna's blotter.
Expressionism--they called it.
Somehow, I felt vindicated.