"I'm just like anyone.
I cut and I bleed."
-- Michael Jackson
Boo boo finger face 6-29-13 |
"Tragedy is when I cut my finger.
Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."
-- Mel Brooks
Linoleum block with actual blood drop 6-29-13 |
"Mishaps are like knives,
that either serve us or cut us,
as we grasp them by the blade or the handle."
-- James Russell Lowell
Nobody can say I am not willing to bleed for my art.
I was carving a linoleum block self portrait, and the knife slipped and jabbed hard into my left thumb.
It hurt, but not too bad, and so I put a Bugs Bunny bandage on it and kept carving.
I should have known better.
I should have had enough common sense to realize what a knife that can cut through hard linoleum might be able to do soft flesh.
I should have put on some gloves.
Should-a. Could-a. Would-a.
A few moments later the knife slipped again, and this time I seriously cut the shit out of my left index finger.
It hurt.
It bled.
A lot.
How does that saying go?
"If it happens once it's a mistake. If it happens twice, it's a choice."
Lucky for me there was a doctor in the house.
He injected a syringe full of Lidocaine into my finger to numb it, then scrubbed out all of the linoleum block debris and sewed me up with 8 stitches.
He swaddled my "Frankenfinger" and said I was lucky because I just missed cutting the tendon.
I, of course, gave my boo boo finger a little sad face and took its picture.
I also gave him a name.
I'm calling him "Art."