Measure once, cut twice.
The steel plates are cut and the edges beveled. I take them to Studio 4 and prop them against the walls. Horror! I realise they are not the same size as the windowpanes in the studio. My plates are about 1-2cm narrower and 1cm taller. Since Studio 4 is part of the same facade as my triple height source window, my initial measurements of the windowpanes in the derelict space must be wrong.
Why is it so important to me that the etching plates are the same size as the original panes? It is partly because the way I normally make my prints is directly from the object. I cannot do that in this case but I remain strongly attached to the idea of the work as a print from the window, a transfer from it or trace of it, not just a drawing of it, which could be any size. The first place I will show them is in Studio 4 next to some of the real windows, so even a slight difference in size will be obvious (to me at least).
Rushing back to measure my chosen triple height window again I find to my surprise that the panes are not all the same size. They vary slightly in width due to the warping and rusting of the window frames and probably inaccuracies in the initial manufacture, but more importantly they are quite different heights in the different sections. The tallest (in the bottom section) being 5cm longer than the shortest (in the middle section). I then run around the building measuring all the windows I can reach and discover that they vary from floor to floor and one façade to another.
In some ways this is good news, I have to question my idea of them as industrially manufactured identical units, and not be completely precious about getting them exactly “right”. But I decide that despite this that I should buy some more steel and get some more plates cut (about 3 days work). None of my existing ones are tall enough to replicate the bottom section panes and due to inaccuracies in my cutting some of them are up to 1cm too narrow.
I ask various people for advice. Some of them think my perfectionist tendencies have unhinged me, but a couple of artist friends are more sympathetic. One says ‘It is the beginning of the project, just cut them again so you are happy and don’t end up wasting time worrying about it” So I summon up the energy to return to the OneStopMetalShop, buy more steel and cut it to get my three sizes of plates. Some of the initial plates can be reused and the whole process takes about four days and doesn’t stop me worrying at all. Now I am worrying about the time I have left to make anything with these plates and about whether I might have gone measurement mad.
