CARSTEN TEN BRINK

Carborundum

Reaching among the large sheets of blotting paper for pieces of drying Somerset to use, I watch Bettina and Bearman. They are on opposite sides of the College’s rectangular printmaking studio, Bettina closest to me in her yellow sweater, a dark-haired oriole staring down in concentration, made smaller and vulnerable by the ink-stained, standard apron she has tied around her petite body. There is a tension to Bettina today that detracts from her attractive, expressive face. The lines by her mouth surely come from emotion rather than age. At times she quivers even when her hands stop moving and the needle and the blades lie still.

Bearman is perched, heavy-shouldered and seemingly relaxed, on a plastic-seated stool at the corner of the Formica-topped shared workspace that dominates his half of the room. He is larger than his apron and has left the strings untied, and the white material hangs like an oversized bib. He too is staring down, and holds a long-handled brush, but he looks up frequently. In her direction.

Bettina and I haven’t spoken this morning. Bearman, however, talked to her for several minutes before leaving the room for a break. When he returned, he brought her a drink in a Styrofoam cup and received a quick smile as payment. Bettina has a thermos by her side and rarely takes breaks before lunch. Her art project is challenging. This is the second Tuesday she’s worked alone next to spare roller-press and she’s barely looked up.

Bettina is like me. We’re independent spirits. We choose to work in corners that are less comfortable, near the presses, but where we can concentrate. Bearman shares his area with our grey-bearded print-room technician Ted and four women. Engaged on individual projects they nevertheless chatter to each other and I cannot imagine how they can be productive with all the empty talk. ‘Isn’t that lovely? You must be so pleased,’ and ‘Oh, I went to a terrific exhibition on Saturday. You must go!’ Bearman joins in their chitter-chatter; from time to time I hear his baritone laugh. It distracts me. I can’t imagine Bettina liking him much. They are very different types.

On my return from the blotters, I want to pass close to her and ask her how she’s doing but the space between her and the reserve printing press is narrow. I’d force her to make room for me, disrupt her concentration, probably irritate her. I walk around the far side of the press, flapping one of the two sheets of Somerset paper I’ve taken, to speed its drying.

‘Need anything, Bettina? My hands are currently clean,’ I say.

She shakes her head, says nothing.

My six-by-eight lino block lies, already inked a deep black, on the mammoth cast-iron relief press. I place the drier of the two sheets of Somerset exactly on top so that the plate will be dead center. Printmaking requires discipline, careful steps in order. As this is to be a single-color print I could always cut the paper afterwards to correct for any poor positioning. It’s not as serious as misaligning a second color on top of a first, or worse, damaging a plate, but I hate to make mistakes.

As I pull the heavy lever to lower the press, I cluck my tongue twice. It’s something I started doing to signal that I am about to print, to arouse curiosity, I guess. Bettina does not look up and the others are too far to hear.

My print is fine, the black solid, the edges clear, but the image itself is mediocre at best, a cliched cityscape. I can do better. I must do better if I want the final image to impress anyone, if I want to exhibit my work. Wednesdays to Sundays I produce PowerPoint presentations in a consultancy’s basement. That is also precision work, and I am good at it, but I’m stuck. If I have a successful print show and invite my boss, that might demonstrate the artistic flair she says I need for a promotion to the design group.

My job is one thing; impressing Bettina is another. Her portfolio is stunning. She is the best intaglio printmaker in the room, assembling work that she hopes will secure scholarship funding for a Masters degree, but otherwise I know little about her. Unlike the four Formica-table women, who seem to be hobbyists, Bettina is dedicated. She’s not only here with me on Mondays and Tuesdays; she produces artwork four days a week, using different techniques. Yesterday morning she collected prints that had dried on the racks over the weekend. She slipped them into her folder too quickly and I lost the chance to say anything complimentary.

She’s had a couple of shows, only in small, out-of-the-way places, but she’s ahead of the rest of us. She’s entered the College annual art prize at least twice, so she’s one ahead of me there too, but the College never selects printmakers. We’re the Cinderella, I guess, and our older sisters Painting and Sculpture usually win, although last year the judges paid lip service to modernity by sharing the awarded exhibition between Painting and Video Arts. The best Bettina and I can hope for is to have our names included in the published short-list. That proof of my talent would already be something for me to bring to my boss.

I hurry to clean the remaining ink off my plate and add dozens of cross-hatching lines with my sharpest v-blade. I’m glad I have that second sheet of Somerset, having wasted the first. Next time I’ll do a test-print on cheap newsprint rather than risk a further failure. I prepare to re-ink my plate.

In our half of the rectangular room, a woman whose name I haven’t retained has placed her zinc block and paper on the main roller press, but the task of turning its heavy arms defeats her. She looks around and notices me. I raise my by now inky hands, one holding an open tube of black. Bettina is within earshot, so I make my voice friendly as I say, ‘If you need me, I can be there in five minutes,’ and watch as the woman seeks help elsewhere.

I turn back to the glass sheet below me, where I have squeezed a peanut glob of ink, and mix in a yellow that reminds me of Bettina’s sweater. Bettina has not offered to help the woman at the roller press either, and once again I feel our spirits align.

It is Bearman who comes to the woman’s rescue. ‘Sure,’ is all he says. He has large hands and struggles for a moment as he pulls off the rubber gloves that he has been wearing. A snap of Latex and he walks towards her, his long torso leaning forward, with that ursine lumbering stride he has that suggests clumsiness, but he turns the press’s arms as smoothly as the studio technician. Bearman’s only been in the print-room for a month, but I bet he knows the woman’s name. She smiles at him. I want to smile too, because Bettina hasn’t noticed Bearman’s charity.

As I ink my plate, I consider Bearman. He might be a hobbyist, like the women he sits with, but last week he stopped his social chatter and ran off a dozen prints in an hour of focus that made me envious. I’d prefer him to remain a social hobby artist. One of the four women, who touches her hair unconsciously, already decorating it with a cobalt-blue ink stripe over her ear, talks incessantly about being single. Bearman could ask her out on a date of some sort.

He brought Bettina a drink but perhaps I’m reading more into that than I should. Last week he walked around offering biscuits to everyone.

Despite the cross-hatching, my test-print fails to impress me. I decide to add texture to a section of my lino block with caustic soda, a technique I am quite proud of, before carving more detail into it and printing onto my second sheet of Somerset. I could do this at my workplace but instead take the block to the sink, closer to Bettina, who might be interested. She appears not even to notice my presence.

As I wash the block to remove any caustic residue that would otherwise continue eating away at the lino’s surface, Ted walks over and watches. He nods.

‘Good technique. You staying to the end today?’

‘Of course.’ Last week, one of the women rushed out, making excuses, and didn’t clear up the inks and tools she’d used. ‘I’ll clean my area.’ I smile. I shake the moisture off my lino and dab its wet textile base with paper towels.

‘It’s not that.’ He has an odd expression on his face.

‘Oh?’

‘I’ll come by while you’re cleaning.’ He nods again and then walks over to Bettina. He leans over her plate and points, says something I can’t hear.

Could it be something to do with the art prize?

During the next thirty minutes, neither Bettina nor Bearman move from their workplaces. Every time the whiteness of an apron catches my eye and I look up, it’s the other women in the group taking turns at the central roller press. The press is the room’s altarpiece and today only Ted and I have avoided its thrall. 

There is a smorgasbord of chemistry in the air, wax and smoke and resin and ink and whatever evaporates from the acid bath where the others etch their metal plates. As I cut the beginnings of a design into a new block of lino, I try not to look up at the sneezes and coughs. Bearman’s sneezes are loud and I imagine tremors radiating through the Formica, disturbing the work of the women around him.

One cough, delicate and polite, comes from Bettina. Her posture unchanged since my last glance, the only movement is the back-and-forth of the metal tool in her Latex-gloved hand, the accompanying flapping of her elbow.

Another darting apron disturbs me, one of the chattering women approaching the press. This time as I look up, Bettina has stopped working on her plate. It’s an opportunity to walk in her direction. An electric fan is blowing, in the corner between Bettina and the sink, its air directed at a shelf where everyone’s metal plates are drying. Among the faster drying zinc or copper plates facing the airflow is the damp woven underside of my lino block.

By the time I have crossed the twenty steps to my lino, Bettina’s tool is back in action, so I get no opportunity to catch her eye. Her Latex gloves are loose on her small hands and one has rolled up, revealing a delicate wrist. I wonder if she wears a bracelet away from the print studio and its various risks to jewelry. I like to imagine something simple, a silver bangle. I have seen no signs when she removes her gloves of pale bands on ring fingers.

My lino’s not yet dry enough. Even on its highest setting, the fan is feeble. Yesterday’s experimental copper plate is back at my workspace, shiny and dry, cleaned of carborundum and chemicals. It’s ready to be inked at any time, but it wasn’t a successful image and, anyway, I have no desire to line up for the roller press. If I want to print before lunch, it will have to be on the relief press again with the lino whose drying is taking so long. I wipe it with a paper towel. People notice if you move their plates, so I turn the fan slightly and aim it better at mine.

I could fill in the time by talking to Bettina. I could approach her, suggest lunch at the Lebanese deli I know she likes, but she stiffens at every interruption. She is still looking down at her plate. It is too early. But I will ask her today.

Ten minutes later I have retrieved my lino, once again without any opportunity for eye contact, and am considering where next to cut. I hear heavy steps near the roller press: Bearman. He places a plate on the press and walks to the stack of giant blotting papers, in between whose sheets our pre-dampened paper is pre-dried. He takes off his Latex gloves with care: nevertheless, one ink-stained palm tears open. His fingers remain clean and he reaches in between the third and fourth blotter sheets but his hand emerges empty. He lifts the large sheets, one at a time, and peers at the drying paper between them, tries to decipher the penciled initials on the corners. His are “EB”. A noise comes from low in his throat. Perhaps some bastard has taken the sheet he prepared, I imagine him thinking, or had he simply miscounted? He rubs his hands on his apron, reaches into a pocket for a pair of glasses and starts again from the top sheet of blotting paper.

I wonder if Bearman is now considering taking a sheet that a printmaker has inserted without initials. But Bettina is one of those that does not initial her sheets, because, she says, she hates erasing the pencil marks later as they can smudge. I have some sympathy for that statement, and not just because she made it. I smile to myself as I watch Bearman.

‘I can’t find my bloody Somerset,’ he says. ‘I’m sure I prepared another sheet.’

No one says anything. Not one of his Formica worktable colleagues offers him paper. Nor does Bettina.

Bearman removes the unprinted plate from the press. His heavy feet scuff and the plate clacks on his Formica work surface despite the layer of newspaper he has been inking on. He stands next at the plastic basin, where paper sheets float and absorb moisture, and he checks his fingers for ink before he stretches his hands into the water to search. This time he finds two sheets that I assume carry his initials. His face is too blank for me to read his reaction.

He checks his fingers again before he slaps the wet sheets on the vertical Perspex surface above the basin and squeegees surplus fluid from them. One of the squeegee strokes is too rough. It pulls a paper sheet loose and a corner folds in on itself. Bearman exhales from the back of his throat – I suspect every printmaker hears him – and puts the sheet back in the water, moves it about to loosen the fold, and replaces it on the Perspex before squeegeeing again. Then after checking for a third time that there is no ink on his fingertips, he carries the sheets towards the blotting paper and inserts them inside. He rests his forearms on the blotter and rubs to iron excess moisture into the absorbent paper. He’s putting his back into it.

I understand what he’s doing: he allowed one of the women take his place at the press but doesn’t want to miss the next slot. He strides toward his workplace and now he’s holding his plate up near his face, rotating it, checking that it’s still good to print.

My lino finally looks satisfactory and I prep my ink, rolling it back and forth on the glass sheet I use as my inking board to get an even layer, not too thick. The ink-roller’s hiss is perfect as it passes over the sticky black and I inhale the oily scent. I’m the only one working with lino and therefore I don’t have to share the rectangular relief press. It’s going to be a productive day. The others can fret about their turns at the roller press. Here I don’t have to worry about lining up. Nor is it critical for my paper to be in that sweet spot between wet and dry, although I do prefer my Somerset slightly damp.

Bettina doesn’t do chitchat, and seems, like me, to dodge those printmakers that talk unceasingly about their personal, emotional inspiration, but she is sometimes interested in seeing other people’s prints, as long as it’s to discuss techniques. She’ll like mine, I’m sure, and showing her will give me a chance to talk to her. I’ll start by soliciting her views, her advice as an experienced printmaker.

Bearman’s on his way back to the roller press, carrying his metal plate loose on the flat of his one gloved palm to avoid fingertips messing with the ink. The woman that he permitted to print before him steps around the press without looking and almost collides with him. His reactions are quick. Pat-pat as his feet execute a two-step reverse; his plate wobbles but he doesn’t drop it. He must be relieved. A damaged plate’s not good for much.

I’m now rolling ink from the glass sheet onto my lino block, back and forth and then diagonally, to get the most even finish.

Bearman lays his plate near Bettina’s workspace and steps across to the blotters. He’s impatient, taking a risk. If his Somerset is too damp, the ink will bleed into the paper fibers, over-run the edges of his design, and the print will fail. And he won’t get another turn until after lunch. I wonder if he’s hoping to impress Bettina with his work. He removes one of his drying sheets and places it on the table by the press.

Bettina remains bowed over her plate and, unusually, is making an adjustment to a cleaned section with her drypoint needle, while most of the metal’s surface remains covered in a layer of ink. Perhaps she noticed a flaw last-minute, while inking. This will have cost her time and she won’t be happy. Her plate is intricate and requires careful and precise handling. She’s only used the press once today.

Bearman stands next to her. She works standing up but he towers over her. Their aprons are identical but I cannot help imagining that they are wearing each other’s by mistake. Hers almost reaches her ankles.

‘How’s it going, Bettina?’ he asks.

‘My print was a fail,’ she says. ‘Now I’ve already spent an hour burnishing away the marks I made earlier. And putting marks where I’d previously burnished. A wasted morning.’ I like her voice even if she’s not at her happiest, even if she’s talking to him.

‘I’m sure the next print will be good.’

Her shoulders twitch once.

‘Can I help?’ he asks.

She shakes her head.

‘Going to the canteen for lunch?’ He’s beaten me to it!

She shakes her head again. ‘Meeting a friend.’

‘Nice,’ he says.

I’m sure he’s lying, disappointed by her response. For a moment I enjoy his setback, but if she’s telling the truth, I also won’t have a chance to have lunch with her today.

I’ll still ask her. If she gives me the same response, I can suggest next week.

She says nothing more and her needle descends to her plate.

‘Excuse me.’ He points at the cupboard above her head. ‘I need to get some gloves. The other box is empty.’

She leans to one side and he, on tiptoes, reaches up. As he moves, an apron-string flicks sideways, towards her inked plate, and he seizes it with one hand before it can do any damage. The unopened spare boxes of disposable gloves lie on the cupboard’s top shelf, next to a cylinder formed of rolls of masking tape. Resting on the boxes is a transparent bag of carborundum abrasive. As he lifts it to get at the gloves, the bag’s top opens and a glittering shower of grit falls.

Dozens of the tiny crumbs rain onto Bettina’s plate.

Bearman appears to react in slow motion, pushing the bag back into the cupboard, but the movement releases more carborundum. Energized by his push, they scatter in flight, landing on the floor, on the work surface, on her plate and some, I am sure, on Bettina herself.  

For a moment there is silence.

‘Shit, I’m sorry,’ he says.

Bettina’s eyes close. She appears to shrink.

‘What a great end to a great morning.’ She’s staring down at the plate.

‘I’m sorry,’ he repeats. ‘Someone must have left the bag open. I’m sorry. Let me help clean it off.’

‘No.’ She doesn’t look up at him. Nor across to me.

‘What can I do?’ he asks. ‘I should have checked the bag.’

She walks away, to the sink. She holds the plate upside down, taps it. Several granules drop from the dry end of the plate. The rest remain stuck in the ink. She’ll have to clean the ink off very cautiously; otherwise the coarse grit will scrape into her delicate design. I know because I used carborundum to add texture to my plate yesterday and almost overdid it.

She holds her plate up and turns it, like Bearman did with his earlier, studying it, then throws it into the black garbage bin. The clack of its impact carries.

‘I’m going home.’ She unties her apron strings and tears off her gloves.

Bearman stares at her. ‘But…’

‘It’s not worth rescuing.’ She wipes the end of her drypoint needle, slides it away into its case. She puts that in her handbag and walks out of the room.

Bearman moves to follow but I can see he doesn’t know what to do. He stops by the door as it closes, opens it, and calls out, ‘I think you have some in your hair. I’m so…’ His voice trails off. She’s probably through the corridor’s first set of doors. ‘Sorry!’ he shouts.

His face is red and his shoulders rounded.

As Bearman stands there, Ted marches to his side and demands to know what happened.

Bearman explains, quite honestly, but ends with a weak, ‘Someone left the bag open.’

‘Clean her workspace,’ Ted tells him, with a single shrug.

‘I can fix it.’ Bearman points at the garbage bin.

‘No. Clean her workspace. But first make sure none of it fell onto the roller press. I don’t want another plate damaged.’

Ted strides out the door, I assume hoping to intercept Bettina before she leaves the building, but he returns quickly, too soon to have spoken to her. The women at the Formica table twitter with questions and comments about Bettina. He asks if anyone has her mobile phone number, otherwise says little. He is a professional: he doesn’t criticize Bearman and instead asks them to be sensitive when they next see Bettina.

It’s only been minutes since the carborundum rained onto Bettina’s plate, and the ink on my lino block shouldn’t have dried, but I refresh it. I don’t want to be the third person having a bad day in the studio.

My Somerset paper is ready, the area where I had rubbed away the initials almost pristine. With luck, this print will be perfect. My eyes are gritty, burning a little, as if some of that carborundum had crossed the room and found me.

I’ve missed my chance to talk to her. I guess it has been a bad day for me, after all.

Maybe if Bettina still has plans to have lunch with her friend it’ll be at that Lebanese place. If I bump into her there, I can be sympathetic and perhaps buy her a coffee. No, I decide. It would be better to leave her alone today.

The last thing I see, before I lower my gaze to the roller and apply a final even coating of ink to my lino, is Bearman, on his knees by the roller press with a dustpan and brush.

While he is occupied, I walk in the direction of the sink where we wash inky fingers before touching our valuable, clean paper. I hold several sheets of newsprint and, as I pass the garbage bin, Bettina’s plate is lying face up on top of discarded paper and torn gloves. Even from this distance I identify crumblets of carborundum stuck in the ink.

Neither Bearman, nor Ted, are looking my way, and I slip her plate in amongst my sheets of newsprint, careful to touch only the edges. I imagine suspending her plate in a tray of vegetable oil to loosen the ink. I have tweezers at home. It might take hours but I have no evening plans this week.

Bettina was too engrossed in her work to notice my use of carborundum yesterday, but Ted may discover that from yesterday’s technician. If I bring her plate back repaired on Monday, perhaps that will help me with her, even if Ted blames me. I have a whole week to come up with a good apology. I could also buy her a gift ­– new plates? – or, yes, less weird, offer to buy her lunch. I feel sorry for her but it’s only one plate, of dozens she’d created.

Bearman is now wiping her workspace. His sheet of Somerset is lying forgotten on the table by the press. Soon it will be too dry to allow a good print. I almost feel sorry for him too.

*

Because of the chemicals, the print-room is locked when there’s no technician present, so lunchbreaks are synchronized. In the park my sandwich tastes gritty, as if Bettina’s plate had transferred inky crumblets in my bag.

When I return, Ted’s in the ground-floor canteen, alone at a table with a paper cup, staring into a phone.

‘Did you find a number for Bettina?’ I ask. ‘Is she OK?’

He shakes his head, glances at his watch.

‘You’ve got time for a tea.’ He points at the chair facing him.

Instead of tea, I pour a glass of water.

He sighs. ‘The art prize results will be released tomorrow.’

I don’t like his sigh. ‘Er, how…’ I’m nervous in front of him, rare for me.

‘You did well.’ His head rises from his phone. ‘We did well. Three printmakers made the long-list. You’re one of them.’

The long-list isn’t published, but I’ll get an email. To show my boss.

‘Bettina too, I assume.’ The third will be from the evening advanced screen-printing class.

‘Yeah.’

‘She’s very good.’

He doesn’t say anything for a moment.

‘They short-listed her for the prize.’

‘So she could still win?’ Part of me is unhappy that she’s done better, but she is the most experienced, so probably deserves it.

‘The Committee’s preference is to share the prize, between a sculptor, who only has four small pieces, and Printmaking.’ His fingers squeeze his paper cup in and out.

He’s talking of the art form, not of the artist. An idea comes to me: it’s Ted who is the third printmaker – he’s entered the competition in the past. And the award is between him and Bettina. That’s why he’s tense.

‘A big win for Printmaking,’ I say. ‘Hundreds come to the prize show.’

He nods. ‘But they won’t give it to Bettina alone. They decided to require a second printmaker. Because it’s the first time Printmaking is recognized.’

Surely Ted doesn’t mind that. Nor Bettina. They both win. Or… did he only want to talk to me because of the long-list? I feel tight in the chest. ‘Share? With whom? Does she decide?’

He sighs. ‘It has to be someone who entered the competition. And made the long-list…’

I barely hear the end of his sentence.

‘…and fits her work.’

No wonder he was talking to her earlier. ‘Has she picked you, Ted? Do I offer my—’

‘Me?’ He plunks his paper cup hard onto the table. A beige trail seeps under the plastic lid. ‘No. Students only, they decided. You thought I was talking about me?’

I make a face, nod.

He shakes his head, says something too quietly for me to parse, but I hear the word ‘politics.’

So it’s me or a screen-printing person. They’re much more colorful in their work, and it’s larger scale. Surely she wouldn’t pick something that would dominate visually over her delicate, complex compositions. I’m in!

I warm, thinking of hours with Bettina, preparing. Of inviting my boss, my whole department.

‘No. Her choice was between you and Eric.’

‘Eric?’ Bearman? ‘I didn’t know he entered the competition.’ And the novice got long-listed.

‘Your work is clever, with varied techniques. A combination with Bettina’s would make a good advertisement for the College’s Printmaking courses.’

Would. ‘But?’

‘Eric’s work sits well with hers.’

He’s being neutral, but I’m reading that he’s on my side. And that Bettina selected Bearman. But after today… My chest is tightening again. I lean forward.

He speaks first. ‘Not that it matters.’

‘What do you mean? Of course it matters! I’d love to—’

‘I made an appointment with her for lunch, with the judges. They were going to share both your submissions with her and give her till four p.m. to decide so that the emails can go out tomorrow. Then I would congratulate one of you on being long-listed and one on being her prize partner.’

‘She mentioned lunch with a friend.’

‘I told her to say that.’ He shrugs.

‘She didn’t show.’

‘No.’ He looks dejected.

The College should have her phone number and email. I assume he’s tried everything, including delaying the deadline. I can repair her plate, but this looks unsalvageable.

‘What does this mean?’ I ask.

‘The sculptor will share the prize with a painter of traditional still lifes.’

If I was the last to use carborundum, I didn’t just ruin a plate, I cost her the prize.

Ted gets up. ‘I’m retiring in two years. I’d have loved Printmaking to win, at least once. I wish I’d caught her before she left the building.’

So do I. The opportunities missed. My work on the gallery walls next to hers. Collaborating with her, getting to know her.

‘Carborundum.’ Ted throws his cup into the recycling bin. ‘Who uses that crap anyway?’

Finishing my water, I feel a scratch in my throat. The oily taste of ink.

Carsten ten Brink is a Pushcart nominated writer, artist and prizewinning photographer. Born in Germany and educated in Australian, American and British schools, he has also lived in Japan and Switzerland. Based in London, he originally studied at the University of Cambridge and has since spent over a decade in printmaking studios like the one in this story. His writing has been published in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. His current WIP includes novels, short stories and a book about his years of travelling in New Guinea. Linktree: https://linktr.ee/Carsten_ten_Brink