Some pieces announce themselves immediately.

Wally wasn’t one of them.

When I first met this reclaimed Black Walnut slab, there was nothing especially dramatic about him. No spectacular voids. No unusual branching. No shape that immediately suggested what the finished print might become.

But the longer I worked with him, the more I began to notice.

Wally refuses to be rushed. Too much pressure and much of his character disappears beneath the ink. But with a lighter hand, careful burnishing and just enough ink, the details begin to emerge: crisp annual rings, subtle shifts in the grain, and those wonderful cracks that interrupt an otherwise orderly record of growth.

Somewhere along the way, the slab I might once have overlooked became one of the most dependable in the studio — and one I find myself returning to again and again.

I think there’s something lovely about that.

Not everything remarkable announces itself when you first encounter it. Some things reveal themselves slowly, after you’ve spent enough time paying attention.

Wally taught me that sometimes the second look is the one that matters.