The First Marks

Every plaster piece begins with a pause. The first marks in plaster art are hesitant, yet they open the surface to possibility and mark the true start of making.

Starting a plaster artwork is not easy. A blank panel leans against the wall, its surface clean and unmarked. I hold the trowel and hesitate. The first marks never arrive cleanly. They come with hesitation, with the weight of choosing where to begin.

Sometimes I sketch lightly in pencil, not to map the piece but to break the silence.

I’ve learned that beginnings are less about vision and more about momentum.

There is a physicality to it. The pressure of hand against tool, the resistance of a smooth surface meeting its first interruption. Even the sound carries weight. A scrape, a scratch, a dull thud as material spreads. These small disruptions announce that the work has started, even if it looks nothing like an artwork yet.

The awkwardness of first marks is something I’ve come to expect. They often look wrong, too harsh, too simple, too bare. But they are foundations, and foundations are rarely graceful. They hold what comes after. When plaster is layered, sanded, adjusted, the original lines are buried, but their influence stays. The surface remembers what came first.

I think of these early moves as a kind of conversation starter. Like the first words spoken to a stranger, they may be awkward or incomplete, but they open the exchange. One mark leads to another, a reply to a reply, and soon the flow carries itself forward. What begins hesitantly grows into dialogue, until the surface and I are speaking the same language.

There are days when the first marks come easily, almost without thought. And others when the panel waits for hours, untouched, while I circle around it, avoiding the risk of making something clumsy. On those days, I remind myself that a clumsy start is still better than no start at all.

Over time, I’ve stopped asking the first marks to be good. Their role is simply to exist. To cut into the blankness, to open the space for what will follow. That shift: from expecting them to impress, to letting them be awkward, has made beginning less daunting.

The finished piece may never show those early gestures, but I know they are there. They are buried in the layers, invisible but necessary. Without them, there would be nothing to build on. The first marks are not about clarity. They are about permission, to begin, to continue, to let the work unfold.

-- AM

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