Day 382 - The Mixing Bench

And so it was that I set out to recreate the mixing bench, the work area I imagined the Old Man had and where he might have extracted that mesmerizing blue from the now forgotten stones. 

Everything I needed was already in the house and I was able to find a use for them quite quickly by following the instructions and some drawings in the journal. The Old Man gave a fairly detailed list of what, where and how. Even the stool with a moth eaten cover which appeared destined for a junkyard found a place in the eventual ensemble of the work area. 

The bench was small but the list was long. There were even instructions for flowers so I did a dry run  to make sure all the required items could fit onto the bench. It wasn't long before I realised that there was one big missing instruction. There was no space for the journal!

It took me a while to figure out that a book stand could be the solution and so I carved a simple one out of a piece of log wood I found. It was just a strip to prop the book up so that I could read and mix at the same time. It also saved quite a fair bit of space. 

The floral pattern for the book stand came almost instinctively. This was after all the sanctuary of an artist and a gardener. Little did I know then that this theme would pervade the entire way I decorated the house henceforward. 

Now that the book stand was in place, I was finally ready to begin the exciting journey of making colours. With linseed oil, beewax and resin and what felt like endless, constant kneading, I started to make blue. I think eternity must have passed and returned before I finally managed to coax some blue pigment out of the good quality lapis lazuli the Old Man had collected. 

Thrilled doesn't even begin to describe how I felt when I first saw the 1st thin film of ultramarine powder. I thought it the most beautiful thing on earth. The brilliant blue made me weak in the knees and I had to sit down. With the bowl in my hand, I stared and marveled at each and every particle, not daring to breathe. Cennini, may I congratulate and then paraphrase you by saying how you were absolutely right about this surpassing everything. I felt like a super being for having been able to create this miracle.

With that sense of empowerment, I began to make the other colours following the instructions in the journal. Every colour that came into being through my hands felt more. The red was fierier, the green fresher, even the yellow seemed more dazzling. 

Then I went back to making more and more blue, each time producing an ultramarine deeper and richer than the last. 

I even found some gold leaf and silver leaf to make the colour shine forth as Cennini suggested.  Each sheet was placed carefully in the plates and held firmly under two precious stones, chosen so the colour on the sheets could be preserved.

I spent so much time at this bench that it felt like I could do practically everything right there in and around this little island .It was a small space but for that few days, it might as well be home.  I even started to do things to cozy it up. I labelled the  jars with vintage tags;

I potted plants;

and flowers; always there were flowers. The pot of miniature lotuses was in fact the first thing I put on the bench right after I made the book stand. 

I no longer have enough words to describe how this experience affected and changed my life after that. Suffice to say that every time I felt a little lost, a little helpless, I thought of my mixing bench in this sanctuary. 

For in that small world where big magic could happen, all my troubles seemed a lot less daunting, all the pains a lot easier to overcome.