Meditation on an X-Acto Blade

I was just changing the blade on my knife. It was a simple thing, something I've done, oh, maybe several thousand times by now, without giving it any thought—like changing your socks. But for some inexplicable reason, as I was putting the new blade in the handle, this time I was struck by a tremendous rush of memories. And they all focused on that small, glinting blade.

My life with "number eleven" began when I was maybe eight or nine years old, as I vaguely remember receiving an X-Acto knife set for Christmas. It was a nice wooden box containing a couple of handles—the classic solid aluminum rod, and the larger, reddish Bakelite version—along with an assortment of blades and other accessories (some of which I still have). Although the box didn't stick around long, the knife set soon helped shift my modeling from simply accumulating stuff to actually making things. Later, it also helped me in my high school art classes—practically the only time I earned A's during those hellish four years.

Those high school art classes would become the catalyst that shaped my choices of college, major and career. As I entered my senior year, Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey) opened up an art class to local high school seniors. Helmed by Wendell Brooks, it was a credit-bearing class, not just extracurricular activity for would-be artists. The only catch was that the credits I earned would only count if I enrolled there. So, I enrolled, and chose commercial art as my major. Besides, it was something of a family tradition: my mother and one of my brothers graduated there. Backing up just a bit, at the same time I started the college art course in high school, I also got a job working for a one-man advertising agency, where I learned graphic art production.

Thus, by the time I entered college, I was already well-versed in the very subject I was studying—which proved to be a bit frustrating for some of my professors, because I would sometimes correct them. They had the habit of describing the life of the budding commercial artist at a big-city agency, whereas most students were more likely to begin their professional lives at a small local shop, which operated very differently. At big agencies, new recruits were tiny cogs in a giant gear, usually starting out with a single responsibility, such as sketching "comps" (short for "comprehensive," an artist's rendering of a proposed layout design). But at a small agency, they'd need to know how to do practically everything, from sketching comps to producing final art, from changing the chemicals on the typesetter (assuming the shop was fortunate enough to have an in-house typesetter) to taking out the garbage. At any rate, there I was in class wielding my X-Acto knife, and then off I'd go to work to do the same.

It helps to understand that, back then, the X-Acto knife was to a commercial artist what a bicycle is to Lance Armstrong. There were no computers or desktop publishing software; commercial art was created by hand and assembled as a "paste-up": a sheet of poster board with pieces of artwork adhered to it with a thin layer of glue or wax. A frequent visitor to the agency where I worked made the astute remark, "You must feel naked without an X-Acto knife." So true. X-Acto knives were more than simply tools to cut out pieces of artwork (which is how the term "clip art" originated); they were our fingers—they were used to pick up small bits of art, place them in position on the paste-up board, push all the art around in tiny increments, and verify its alignment. They were also used to cut amberlith or rubylith overlays for photograph halftone masks and tint blocks, and to fend off grouchy art directors. (Well, that last bit wasn't true, but it's a thought that's passed through many a commercial artists' mind).

As an aside, one of the other fixtures of a typical ad agency was gallon-containers of rubber cement thinner. Some shops used rubber cement to assemble paste-ups, but wax was preferred because it was easier to re-align the art. Wax was more expensive, though, because you needed a special machine that applied a thin coat of melted wax to the back of the art. However, rubber cement thinner was present in either case because the thinner dissolved wax. When a little thinner was squirted on the paste-up board, the wax would soften, and you could "float" the art around (with your X-Acto knife, of course) until it was aligned. It was also something of a rite of passage for new recruits to be squirted with thinner by the resident pros; this would usually freak them out, since they'd be convinced that their clothes were ruined or they'd get sick from skin contact. What they'd later learn is that the thinner was virtually harmless on both counts. Actually, the shop where I worked had no air conditioning, and on brutal summer days we'd deliberately douse ourselves with thinner once in a while to help stay cool. I'm sure OSHA would have a fit...

After college, in addition to a full-time job at an agency, I moonlighted as a stripper at a number of printing firms. Now, before you start snickering as you try to imagine me in a G-string, understand that, after the finished paste-ups (or "mechanicals") produced by an agency were delivered to a printer, they were shot in a giant graphics camera to make litho negatives, which were then attached, or "stripped," onto sheets of special orange paper called "flats" that were used to burn the printing plates. The process of stripping the flats was critical work, because the negatives had to be aligned with great precision—especially for multi-color work, where multiple flats had to be in perfect registration. And the X-Acto blades? To strip the negatives onto a flat, the negatives were first cut down to size and arranged according to how the page was printed; then, openings or "windows" were cut in the flat to expose the image areas. After the negatives were aligned on a light table, they were attached to the flat with a device similar to a soldering iron, but with a stubby tip; touching it to the flat melted a small bit of negative underneath, creating a bond. I did this work long enough that I eventually bought my own folding loupe (right), which I still have, and which has occasionally come in handy for some of my more demanding modeling.

What spare time I had left after two jobs was spent model railroading. And so for many years practically my entire life revolved around X-Acto blades in some way. Agencies and print shops would order them in bulk, because a dull blade was worse than useless in these lines of work—dull blades would tear artwork or rip negatives; I'd perhaps go through a dozen a day. As my modeling progressed, I started ordering blades in bulk for myself as well. Eventually I also got a blade disposal container, with is just a plastic box with a slit in the top (it's not a good idea to toss spent blades in the garbage can). I've had it for the last dozen years or so, and it must contain at least a thousand blades by now.

All of these thoughts passed through my mind in the course of maybe a minute, as I simply sat staring at the blade I'd just changed. Funny how these things happen. Talk about having your life pass before your eyes...