PRINTING WITH POTATO
I was excited to try out the potato printing because it felt creative and unique. In my mind, the process looked straight forward. I thought that if this worked, I would incorporate this into some designs on fabric for the future. I bought two potatoes, some paint, and a brush. The outcome was a disaster. Actually, the entire process was challenging and time consuming that I didn’t even made it to the part where I could print one letter.
The word I wanted to print was bread, because it would be curious to see how the b and d letters would turn out. I did an outline of the letters on the potato after drying them. The entire process was extremely challenging. I kept scooping out parts that needed to stay in. I kept making this error again and again. I bought potatoes the next day and again and I repeated the process again. This time, I had difficulty producing the width and depth I needed in order to get a thick outline of the letter. A few times, I tried to dig deeper into the potato, I broke it. It was also difficult to do the curved parts, such as the loop in the b. By the third night, I gave up and did a diary entry. There was a lot of potatoes that were sacrificed and a lot of time used in the process and I couldn’t even create one printable letter.
This mechanization of writing using potatoes was such an unproductive way of to write out a word. But, as Haas pointed out in ‘The Technology Question,’ it was a way “to bring language material to life” (p.3). It was labour and time intensive just to create a letter that I could imagine how valuable it would be if print was done using this way.
Reference: Haas, C. (2013). “The Technology Question.” In Writing technology: Studies on the materiality of literacyLinks to an external site.. Routledge. (pp. 3-23).
DIARY ENTRY
I do not usually write anything that requires organization or that needs to be more than a paragraph by hand. It is only when I brainstorm ideas and write key words or jot down a grocery list that I write manually. If I had to choose between typing a journal entry or writing a journal entry, then this task was difficult. SINCE I tried the potato printing before doing this journal entry manually, then this was an enjoyable task to do 🙂
I admire beautiful cursive handwriting. I like writing that appears neat and tidy and I try to always begin my writing this way. At first glance, my words are a mixture or printing with sprinkles of cursive writing. I always write using my Frixion erasable gel pen because if I make a mistake, I can just erase. At times, I just cross out the word.
I find that the more I write by hand, the spaces between words becomes wider, the words appear larger, and I tend to move towards a sloppy cursive writing. This is like an elementary student’s writing when their hand becomes fatigue from writing too much. I used to take a lot of notes by hand when I was in university. One summer, I read a short hand book in order to be more efficient at taking notes in class. Whenever my hand becomes fatigue, I automatically switch to shorthand in order to be able to write more.
I think the most significant difference between writing manually and using a mechanized form of writing, such as a computer, is that it is easier to edit your words while maintaining the flow of ideas. As well, no more worrying about making mistakes on paper, encountering arm fatigue, or spending the whole day just to write a first draft. I like that I can efficiently create multiple drafts before producing the finished writing, which would be hard to do by hand. I like having the tools of being able to being able to cut and paste my sentences when I am editing, using the spellcheck, as well as the thesaurus.
I feel for you with the potato printing task! It wasn’t easy, but I think you came away with the ‘correct’ reflection: ” It was labour and time intensive just to create a letter that I could imagine how valuable it would be if print was done using this way.” I think that was my main takeaway message as well. If someone had to sit down, day in and day out, and manually transcribe text onto some sort of (unpredictable and fragile) writing material, the text must be pretty important for so much effort to have been exerted.
Those poor monks!
Kudos to you for trying to stick with it for so long.
Hi Tamara, thank you for summing it up, it was labour and time intensive! Even though it was difficult, I enjoyed the experience and one day I would really like to create a b and d carve from a potato stamp and hang it on a wall as art 🙂
Hi Melody,
I can see the effort and time in every stab mark on those poor little potatoes. 🙂
Whether it is a success or not, investing the time to create something like a potato print allows us to see the commitment needed by those who put words on a page back when it was more challenging. It is like your potato letters seem all the more valuable because of the investment you made to make them.
Hi Ryan,
Ha ha ha!!! You have a very intuitive eye, I did use several instruments to carve my letters and all with no success. I even used different sizes of potatoes. You summed it up nicely. I was very humbled by the experience after time spent and emotional investment 🙂
I appreciate how honest you were with the potato task. I was also really excited to take on a craft project and jumped in thinking it would be pretty easy. Cut to me realizing I had to redo most of my letters an hour later and my partner questioning if I really needed to be depleting our precious pandemic food stores by using more potatoes.
Hi Norah, I’m so impressed that you made the letters! Ha ha ha….. your partners’ words were the same thoughts echoing in my mind, which is why I stopped after the pile of potatoes that was growing on my table. However, I did think of the Movie “Mars” with Matt Damon and googled if you can grow potatoes from potatoes. So….theoretically you can, therefore some of them I buried in the backyard and we will see 🙂
Hi Melody, thanks for sharing your stamps! I love how you attempted to did both of assignments. The hand writing one really hurts my hand too much. At first I was so impressed with how your stamps turned out creating the single line letters but then after I read that you gave up I laughed because at first glance I was so impressed with how you did that. I gave up on hand writing because it hurts too much. My potato carving wasn’t great but I stuck with it even after realizing you needed to flip the letters…which was awful for me.
Hi Tyler, that’s so funny, I chose potato carving because I thought it would be fun, creative, and easier. Definitely no. That is so awesome though that you were able to create a letter!!! Potato carving is definitely a skill.
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