Waiting Between Layers

In cooler light, plaster takes longer to dry. These pauses become part of the work, moments to step back, observe, and let each layer settle. Waiting Between Layers traces the rhythm of patience in artmaking, where stillness and change move together and the surface grows quietly over time.

The light has shifted in the studio.

Mornings arrive with a cooler edge, and the plaster dries at a slower pace. I notice it most in the quiet wait between layers, when the surface holds on to a damp sheen longer than it did a month ago.

These pauses are not wasted. They become part of the rhythm. I set tools down, make tea, look out at the garden that feels on the cusp of turning. The first blossoms show against bare branches, a reminder that change is often layered, subtle, and uneven.

Working with texture teaches that there must be patience in artmaking. You can’t rush plaster into form. Each layer carries its own weight, its own way of settling.

Sometimes I want to push ahead, but the material insists on stillness. I’ve come to see this as part of the work, not separate from it.

There are days when a piece moves easily, when the surface feels open and responsive. Other times, it resists. The lines fall flat, or the texture collapses where I thought it would hold.

I’ve learned to stay with both states, to keep showing up even when the work feels uncertain.

This season of waiting and adjusting is as much about trust as it is about making.

The work is built slowly, in layers I can’t always predict, and in that process something quiet emerges.

For now, the pieces in progress rest on the walls, drying in their own time.

The studio carries the scent of plaster and paint, faint but familiar.

I leave them be, knowing that tomorrow the light will shift again, and with it, the surface.

-- AM

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