A napkin, a line, and one thousand words. An article by Stephanie Feinton.
Imagine, if you will, a napkin with a line on it. I’m willing to bet that if we could somehow take a picture of the image in your mind, and compared it to the images in everyone else’s mind, no two would be identical. There would be variation in the colors, shapes, and textures. To start off with, how many people pictured a white napkin? Cloth? Paper? Embossed or embroidered edges? Was there a logo written on it? If so, did the line go through the logo? Around it? Was it a straight line, was it wiggly, or was it closer to an arc? Was it thicker at one end than the other? Was it drawn in pen, marker, crayon, pencil, chalk, lipstick, eyeliner…?
There might not be an infinite number of ways to imagine a line drawn on a napkin, but there certainly are a great number. And while there is a chance that two people would imagine the exact same image, the chances of everyone imagining the exact same image are miniscule.
And what you picked for your image might say a lot about you. How imaginative were you? Too late now, and don’t be embarrassed if what first flashed to mind was a cheap white paper napkin with a quick pen streak on it, that’s probably what most people thought of. Now, I’m sure, images of red and green reindeer appliquéd cloth napkins with lines of gravy marring their surfaces are running through people’s heads as they try to think of the most bizarre combinations possible. Cheap brown paper napkin with a line of nail polish, a posh vintage cloth napkin with a line of cranberry sauce ruining it, a birthday themed paper napkin with a line of blue icing… I think you get the idea.
And if we were to ask you to recreate the great artwork ‘Line on a Napkin’, then photograph it and send it to us, I’m sure the gallery would be varied, and, if I do say so myself, quite amazing. And this, dear readers, is what I’m going to ask you to do. Whatever image ‘Line on a Napkin’ brings to your mind, make it. Photograph it, and send it to us. Do it now, before you read the rest of this article. But keep that camera handy, because there will be another task at the end of this article.
Are you done? Good. Now, read on.
Most everyone is probably familiar with the adage ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. What I am now going to do is to take the next thousand words and describe, in great detail, the napkin with the line on it I see in front of me. Then I want you, based on my description, to recreate the image as closely as you can. Take a picture of this, as well, and send it in with your original. We’ll see how close the second set of photographs are to the original, and to each other.
Ready? Oh, what, you need a bribe, dear readers? Okay, then, out of all the entries we will randomly draw a name that will win the framed, signed original napkin. Call it a conversation piece, if you will. Did I forget to mention the line was drawn by none other than Maria Boshworth? Now you’re willing to play along, I see how you are.
Okay, here we go…
The napkin itself is a very thin, cheap white paper napkin that is found in many diners and fast food restaurants on the table in little silver napkin dispensers. Not the larger landscape ones that typically hold the dull brown napkins, but the smaller, upright ones with the black plastic sides and the shiny metal openings. The texture on the paper is that of an uneven weave, with random lines of thicker strands running horizontally and vertically throughout the napkin, though the overall impression given is that of twenty-two count cross stitch fabric, with a hint of a Sudoku board thrown in, with the heaver strands represented by the dark lines that mark off the nine by nine grids.
It’s not a blinding, snowy white, but neither does it have any real yellowish or grey cast. It is not stained, used, rumpled, marred, or discolored, nor does it have any large creases other than the ones where it is folded to fit into the dispenser. There are slight dark flecks and imperfections in the napkin, random tiny pinpoints of black, but not so obvious that it’s the first thing one notices, and the napkin still looks a very generic dull white from a distance. The flecks are fairly evenly distributed in what appears to be a random pattern. If you were to, say, pick up a Dutch Boy paint chip, you’d find Milk Bubbles a very close match, at least in natural sunlight.
Unfolded, the napkin measures eight point seven five inches by twelve point one inches. The napkin is folded two point four inches from the left side, to the back side (the mountain fold, to those familiar with origami), and two point eight five inches from the right side, to the front side (valley fold). Then the top zero point one inch is folded down to the back (mountain fold), and the resulting top right corner is crumpled ever so slightly, the top being pulled slightly down, creating forty five degree crease and a little ear like flap. The napkin is then folded three point four five inches from the top forward and down (valley fold), then again another three point four inches forward and down (the acute visualist and mathematician will realize that the tiny top fold is most likely the result of this secondary fold, since they line up perfectly and it is obvious that the top portion was just a tiny fraction – zero point one inches, to be exact – too large to fit inside the folded area. The little ear crease is now almost completely hidden, but it’s still there and is possibly the cause of the rumble described later on).
The folded napkin now measures three point five inches across, with and edge two point four five inches from the left on the top portion and zero point six five inches on the bottom portion, and five inches top to bottom, with an edge three point five inches from the top. The bottom edge of the napkin is not completely even, with a small point sticking down and out zero point zero five inches where the edge of the napkin is folded in towards the center. The upper right corner, on top of the ear crease, is slightly bent, as if someone folded over the corner at a forty-five degree angle, then flattened it back out and pulled ever so slightly down at the tip.
The line on the napkin is not a true, deep black, but rather the dark grey of a hastily pulled black ball-point pen. The ink has not bled, and is fairly uniform along the upper portion, where the napkin was thicker and there was more give under the tip of the pen. If you look closely at the portion, the pen line almost more resembles a charcoal line, which blotches of gray and small specks of white napkin not covered. As the pen skipped down to the thinner, lower part, it gets thinner and heavier, and much more completely filled in. There is also a break between the two sections, where the force of pushing the pen over the upper surface caused it to slide down and cover a portion of the lower section that is usually visible.
The pressure of the pen has also causes a slight rippling of the napkin near the line, only truly visible if you tilt the napkin so the light catches the ripples and shows that the line, itself, is ever so slightly depressed into the napkin. In a few areas it appears less as if the line is pressed in, and more as if the pressure of the pen, like that of tectonic plates, has caused the napkin along the edge of the line to buckle upwards into rolling peaks.
The line starts one inch from the left and one inch from the top, curving ever so gently in a barely noticeable arc until it hits the edge of the upper portion of the napkin. Here it crosses at one point seven five inches from the left edge. After a brief disappearance for zero point one inches, it reappears a line-width to the left and continues to angle downward, much more steeply, for another zero point nine inches. At this point it terminates cleanly, with only the slightest leftward draw creating a barely visible peak, two point eight inches from the left edge and zero point five inches from the bottom.
The entire napkin is canted, counter-clockwise, forty five degrees and is resting on a piece of purple craft felt, the very cheap, fuzzy variety. The purple is a deep lilac, not bright nor pastel, but also not deep or dark. It’s a true purple in the sense that it is, aside from the softness given off by the furriness of the felt, the color purple often depicted in rainbows. It’s slightly darker than Dutch Boy’s Violet Seascape, but much the same hue - and it’s not as dark as Regal Dream.
And there, dear reader, are one thousand words describing a very simple picture. You may have a better idea what I see now, though I fully admit you may have also nodded off.
But think about this - if a thousand words covers one line on one napkin resting on one piece of felt, how can we shortchange the work of artists like Rembrandt and Michelangelo and say that their pieces can possibly be summed up in a mere thousand words? Are we shortchanging the wonderful ability of our eyes and brain to process an immense amount of information in a split second? We glorify writers who describe vivid scenes, when in reality they are doing but a tenth – no, a hundredth – of what is really there. Our brains fill in the details for us, pulling in details from our lives and experiences. One person’s meadow, like one person’s napkin, will be very different.
Where am I going with this, you might ask? Well, I’m sure there’s a deep, philosophical discussion in there, including some Freud to analyze why you imagined what you imagined, but that, dear readers, is for next week, as I am all out of column space.
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