I have a new electric eraser and here and elsewhere I am having fun with it. It is easier to draw with than then other erasers in my arsenal, though I haven’t reached sufficient proficiency to do all the things I want to do with it, even when I sharpen the end to a point. Time will take care of that.

As with many of my cards this year, here I’m using the back end of one of my little sketchbooks for dark-backgrounding of the card. I like including the holes the metal binding-wire went through. They remind me of old process-photography film, and of the sprockets that convey the sound in film movies. In both cases there is the sense of being a part of a continuum, most of which the viewer cannot see.

Another thing I want to share is that I’ve more and more gotten the sense that my finished pieces are too sketchy, and my sketches are too finished-piecey. But for most of my work the conveyed concept does the heavy lifting, no matter the sketchiness, so it’s all good. I’m also preparing for my future dementia: I may, and dreadfully soon (to me even thirty years is “soon”), not have very good or very many ideas. When I see that obviously happening, I intend to do remakes of my “greatest hits,” more finished and polished versions of my older work. I will be collaborating with my younger self. And I’ll be using state-of-the-art equipment to assist my effort. So I hope to be able to make a contribution to the visual arts right up to what my lifelong friend Tom Sing calls “stepping up to the turnstile.” Thinking about that helps quell my mild panic about my life’s endgame.