I chose the word “ivory” and spent about two hours carving the five letters into potatoes. While the carving process was intricate, the real revelations came when I attempted to create two identical copies of my word.
Initially, I tried stamping out the whole word once before making the second copy. The results were frustratingly inconsistent. My wife suggested I should stamp each letter twice before moving on to the next one – this worked much better since my hand could immediately reproduce the same angle and positioning while the motion was still fresh. In retrospect, this practical solution highlighted how challenging it is to achieve consistent handwork without mechanical assistance.
When drawing each letter with marker, I found myself less focused on the basic letter shapes and more on trying to add aesthetic touches – subtle bulges at the ends of the ‘i’ and gentle undulations in the ‘r’. These artistic ambitions would make the already challenging carving task even more difficult. After drawing, I’d press the knife straight down along the lines to define the letter’s shape. For outside edges, I could then use the flat of the blade to slice cleanly from the potato’s edge inward toward these deep cuts – just like slicing a potato for cooking. The enclosed spaces – like the inside of the ‘O’ and the triangle in the ‘V’ – required carefully digging out small chunks, working to maintain an even depth while ensuring complete separation between the raised letter and its hollow interior.
When I started stamping the letters, I was surprised by random flecks appearing in what should have been clean exterior spaces. Despite my careful carving that felt precise at the time, the prints revealed imperfections I hadn’t anticipated.
After spending two hours to carve just five letters into potato stamps, I gained a visceral appreciation for printing technology. The painstaking work of creating even this simple reusable form helped me understand what we take for granted – the revolutionary ability to design letterforms once and reproduce them thousands of times. The challenge of making my crude potato stamps revealed the sophistication behind centuries of printing innovations.