I decided to take on the potato stamp task with one of my sons for fun. It was definitely challenging to make two stamps that were as identical as possible. We did our best with a small paring knife, but every little curve and notch became obvious as soon as we added the paint. As we carefully carved the potatoes, we realized that because we hadn’t spelled my son’s name backwards, the stamp would appear reversed. We probably should have started over, but I decided to keep going and view it as part of the reflective process.

It took us about an hour from start to finish, gathering materials, cutting the potatoes in half lengthwise to make room for the whole word, sketching the name, and then doing the carving itself. The painting and stamping part was the most fun, especially when we saw the final product and laughed at how it came out backwards.

The two prints turned out quite different. Stamp #1 produced a clearer image with more visible details, while stamp #2 was thicker and a bit smudged. In print #1 the letters are closer together, while in print #2 they are more evenly spaced but farther apart. I imagine that in the past, when stamps were used for communication, the goal would have been to make all the words as uniform as possible. This exercise really highlighted how labor-intensive and difficult early forms of writing and printing must have been.

As for the letters themselves, the “A” and “M” looked correct, but the “J,” “E,” and “S” appeared backwards since we had carved them the same way we would normally write them from left to right. Reflecting on this process makes me appreciate how the mechanization of writing through inventions like the printing press, typewriter, and eventually computers has made producing text far faster and more efficient. I feel grateful for these advances because they allow ideas to be shared instantly and at scale, while also giving me a new appreciation for the patience and craftsmanship required in earlier forms of writing.