Ticket Edge, Sunpatch

Moved the table under the window. Still damp underneath, but the sun falls in long, hazy rectangles. The handmade paper wants to curl and buckle—fights the gouache, so I press it down with the back of the scalpel. Wax dries quick on the high spots, slow in the shadows. The shape: ferry ticket edge, that serrated bite where a man tore it from my palm. I carved it into the wax, let the brine flood the groove. Gouache pulls to the edge and sits there—stubborn as a shoreline. Sun kept moving, so the color shifts. The work smells like rain and wood sap. I keep my tools close; the metal cold, the handles a little swollen from the air. The ticket’s not a memory—just a cut, scored and filled. Studio’s quiet but for the street radio, static mixed with the shout of a kid. Whole thing dries slow. That’s alright.