The Cavern

Emma Masterson

It’s hard to find solitude on a high school campus. A perpetual symphony of percussive pedestrians and woodwind whispers echoes through the halls, its cacophonous melody the national anthem of the American education system. Normally I enjoy my role in the ensemble of this orchestra, as I often have friendly conversations or effervescent laughs or at least the sharp click-clack of my shoes against the hard floor to add to the music. But at my core I am not a musician; I am an artist, and I work alone. Making art is an incredibly personal process, as I must pour a part of myself into the world. This is not easy to do when I have the attention span of a goldfish. I can’t focus on myself and my artwork when even the softest of sounds are enough to grab my attention and distract me. Even the “quiet” spaces are anything but. The classrooms are built on a foundation of stone and discussion; the archaic library books see much more socializing than studying. 

But beneath that clamorous environment, hidden in the school basement, lies a white hallway with an unassuming wooden door marked “Darkroom.” Behind it lies a deep cavern, full of putrid scents, dripping water, and an absence of light. The cavern is long and narrow, with a row of photo enlargers on the left wall and another enlarger, a metal counter, and a sink on the right. Off the entrance is a side room with more enlargers, but only the large classes use that space. A thick rubber matting, similar in appearance to fishnet, covers the entire darkroom floor. This cave is where I find solitude. It is here where I can look inside myself and develop a reflection of my inner being; it is here where I can make something from nothing. I am not the only student who ever crosses its oak threshold, but I am usually unaccompanied on my visits to the darkroom--it is as personal as shared space can be. It is in this space of mine that I can focus and embark on the odyssey of my artistic expression, spending what seems like hours inside its pitch black walls, perfecting my prints. My negatives live in a little black box I keep at my enlarger. They are the details of the world--a quiet afternoon, a blossoming plant, a lonesome person-- and each one tells a story. I select a negative and carefully put it in the enlarger to make my first test print. Once the enlarger is focused I put the paper in the holder. The light timer is set to five seconds, and I cover almost all the paper with a piece of cardboard. Click. The light comes on. Click. The light goes off five seconds later. I uncover a little more of the paper. Click. Click. This process continues until the whole paper is uncovered. Click. Click. I take the seemingly blank paper and place it in a bath of developer. It needs to sit in the developer for a whole minute, and after twenty excruciatingly long seconds of nothing, an image begins to appear. I watch, mesmerized, as my test print comes to life in a red haze.  I place it in the stop bath, then the fixer. Once it has soaked in the fixer for a seemingly eternal minute, I can turn on the lights. It is overexposed on one side, and underexposed on the other. But in the middle, at around fifteen seconds of exposure it is perfect. I turn off the main lights, and under the red glow of the safe light I turn the timer on the enlarger light to fifteen seconds and put down a new sheet. Click. The enlarger light comes on. Click. It turns off. I watch the image come to life in the developer, then wait during another seemingly eternal soak in the stop bath and fixer. After a whole minute of waiting, wondering, and wanting, I can finally turn on the main lights. It’s perfectly exposed in one part, but underexposed in another. So I make another print, burning and dodging over the underexposed area so that enough light hits the paper to completely expose it. Then another print. Then another. And it is finally perfect. On the other side of the darkroom door, I can hear the reprise of the symphony: lockers are slamming and sneakers are squeaking--is the period over already?   

In the darkroom I am removed from the bustling microcosm that is school life. Time is made of slow, dark molasses.  There is a clock on the wall, but it only ticks about forty times a minute, making eighty minutes appear to be fifty-five. It is so easy to focus in the darkroom because there is only one thing to focus on: art. But time does not stop in the darkroom, and eventually I have to return to reality: to sixty-second minutes, sixty-minute tests, and sixty-hour school weeks. Every time I leave the darkroom I shut the door behind my empty cavern, and that putrid smell of chemicals lingers on my fingertips, waltzing amongst the orchestral melody of ticking clocks and rushing feet.