R.I.P. but no pun intended

This was going to be a double portrait of my youngest sister and myself, but it met an untimely fate. You know how when there is a little nick in a canvas and just the right pull at the wrong moment can rip it apart? Paper more or less works in the same way. It was a fairly big drawing, three by four feet. Normally, gesso-ing the back of the paper makes it more resistant to tearing, but there was ONE. SMALL. vulnerable spot on the back of the paper (top and center where the two figures are divided) that was not covered in gesso. Laziness on my part? In a rush to start drawing? A friend was helping me put it up on my wall so I could get back to work on it. He, not really knowing how to handle paper (is that possible?), put unnecessary macho force while bracing it against the wall with pressure that was southbound.

damnit

damnit

damnit

That painting never stood a chance, it split

right

down

the

middle.

Perfectly down the middle, Rebecca and I were split apart, it couldn't have been more (vomit) poetic than if it had been in some Lifetime movie. I mean, the tear didn't touch either of the figures, perfectly demolished.

When something like that happens, you think you'll let out a cry or react, I couldn't. Like, when you get some really bad injury, the kind that makes you have to go to the ER, right between the moment it happens and when the pain kicks in there's this split second of "That didn't just happen". All I could do was just stand there silently dumbfounded.

The source materials are still around, this painting is long gone, I had no desire to save it. kidding myself like that would have just added insult to injury. This painting is going to happen again, damnit!

ugh, damnit