More Printing

 The print I have in the rack is pretty much dry, so I decided to print the second ordered print today.  Another beautiful almost summer day here in April, so a good day to drive up to Ocean Grove.  Got there and found the sink in the basement was full of red stuff.  Maybe ink, maybe paint, I don't know, except that it didn't come from me.  And I doubt it came from Molly, as we have a sink in our space, and she probably wouldn't be using the men's room if we didn't.  I worked around it and got to work.

Once again I brought selections from my newly acquired cassette library.  Two label produced tapes- Steely Dan Gold by Steely Dan, and Steve Miller Band Greatest Hits 1974-1978 by the Steve Miller Band, of course.  Plus one home recorded tape- assorted songs from the Who.  The two label produced compilations follow double album compilations from earlier in their careers, both of which I have on vinyl, so in storage.  Also in each case, I was able to get the second side to play by repeatedly pressing on the play button until it worked.  As far as the Who songs, I have no idea where I taped it from.  Not any album I have on vinyl or disc or cassette.  I know that many of the songs come from different albums originally, from the 1960's to the 1980's, again mostly things I don't have.  That all three tapes were in this particular box was probably because I had other things by the same bands on my CD shelf, including some of the same songs.  In any case, all music to listen to as I worked, and for that need it did the job fine.

Work today was continuing on my print order.  I decided today to take on the two copies of Love In Vain that were requested in Virginia.  Or at least one of them.  With clean hands I tore the paper to the right size, put on my apron, got out some ink, and began the process.  As the music played, I inked and printed. 

When I was done, I had another copy of the print with the lyric, as requested.  Everything in the image area is fine, but there are a few flaws in the margins- marks and such.  If I can remove them by erasing or trimming, I can still use this print.  If not, I'll have to print yet another one, and save this print for another purpose.  A mat would cover the marks, and the print itself is a good one. 

So that's now maybe two down, and two to go.

After the printing session there was still a bunch of the red stuff in the sink, and near and around the wastebasket in the basement bathroom, so I decided to report it to the office on my way out.  The door was unlocked, but no one was in there.  Hopefully they find out before Sunday's event.

Terraplane Blues part 5

 Another day, time to work.  I decided to try something different today and bring cassette tapes.  One day last week we took a trip to my storage unit, threw away my old recliner/rocker (very dirty, but it seemed like it was caused by the storage unit), and brought some stuff home.  At my mother's request, the bigger boxes didn't even come in the house, but I just unloaded them and brought the contents (mostly art books) inside a few at a time. (those old boxes were recycled)  Also got my print group folios, some art materials, postcards and other art promotional material, and those tapes. Back in the old days, before there were compact discs, cassettes were the easiest thing to listen to, and I bought some music that way.  I also put some record albums on tape, listenable anywhere, such as my car, or boom boxes here and there.  I kept an old boom box in my studio in Carbondale, but a more modern one with a CD player in my apartment.  The cassette player in my car stopped working as I drove to Illinois to start classes, and cassettes were replaced with discs in music stores, so I started buying discs or vinyl.  Now there are no record stores, and music sections of department stores are now gone, so I don't buy anything.  Most of my cassette collection of music is still in storage (I could see it, but not reach it that day), so what I brought home was the lesser things, but it was new things to have at home or in my current studio, so I was glad to have it.  Plus I knew that the new boom box I got for the Studio has a cassette player as part of it.  Never used it, but I knew it was there.

Another thing I brought with me today was several dozen of those postcards, all things with images of my art.  (I had organized them at home over the weekend)  I figure to have some available at the Open Studio for people who want such things, and this seemed as good a day as any to bring some there.  Of course my real reason for going was related to current art, so I had brought with me the latest block, and my tools and a sharpening stone.  The tools were to take the image down to the borders, and removed the margin veneer.  Before this, I sharpened some of them.  I also checked the status of the print I pulled the last time I was there.  The ink seemed pretty dry, but I have no place to put it anyway, so I left it in the drying rack for now.  I was able to remove quite a bit of wood from the block, done now rather than when I have an audience.  This included the area between the bottom border and the top of the text.

I didn't touch anything I had drawn on the block, as I am saving all that for the Open Studio.  I ended up cutting the first word in the top line, which made me decide to go ahead and re-letter all of it. So I ended my cutting there today.  Below is how it looks now:

As for my cassette experiment- mixed results.  I had brought with me two label recorded tapes (both Atlantic), The Blues Brothers original soundtrack recording, and Led Zeppelin II, their second album, and the only one of theirs that I only have on tape.  Both are excellent albums, but were probably relegated to this box because I had other stuff on disc from each band, and just didn't listen to them as much.  One thing I realized about the soundtrack album was that some of songs were different versions than appear in the movie.  These were songs that the band performed live in the film, while the ones on the tape were recorded in a studio.  Maybe it had to be that way.  The Led Zeppelin album was their second, and was a road album, meaning it was recorded in various studios as the band was busy touring and promoting their first album, but the quality is good nonetheless.  (this may have had as much to do with becoming better songwriters and players, plus familiarity playing with each other)  One thing odd about this is that the song order is much different than any other version of the album, probably the necessity of making both sides come out even, not an issue on disc or vinyl.  So the music was good, but playing them was a problem.  First of all, I had a hard time figuring out the tape buttons on my boombox, marked but not clearly.  Second, I couldn't get the second side of either tape to play.  I'll have to figure out that later.  So I switched to a home recorded tape, which had a copy of a vinyl album on the A side- David Bowie's ChangesOne Bowie.  This was the first volume of a two record greatest hits collection, with ChangesTwo Bowie having later songs.  I believe these two albums were later combined on the Changes Bowie disc, which I later burned onto disc, which is why this tape was in the secondary box.  And when it ended I was able to flip the cassette and play some from side B, so this tape worked at least.  By the way, all of this can be found on the internet if I need to listen to it near a computer.

2024 Tournament of Art part 4

 We just had the final weekend of the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament.  It's probably no surprise that UConn won, repeating as champion, something that rarely happens, and may happen even less, with reformations in the college game that give players more rights.  I predicted this, and also the opponent they beat, which probably a lot of other people did as well, as the two teams were dominant this year.  I ended up picking 43 games correctly out of 63 games that were played.  Not great, but not bad.  My art schools have all been gone for a while. (I don't include a school like Purdue, which has a head coach who had previously coached at one of my art schools- such things don't count in my way of thinking)

What this means is that schools from the Big East won both the NCAA and the NIT basketball tournaments, and in the two games those winning teams played against each other this year, they split.  Yet so many other conferences were given more teams in the NCAA than the three the Big East got in.  That committee has some things to explain.

Printing

 I got some good news over the past week, there is a demand out there for the Robert Johnson prints.  I knew they were well liked in the exhibition, but over the past week I had three people order prints, for a total of four.  I'm glad that I am getting something else out of these, but that means I have to print them, which is some work.  I have all the blocks of course, and I have enough ink and paper to do the job, so all I need to do is go through the effort of printing them.  I can handle that, but it is a physical effort.  A bit of good news is that there is no immediate deadline on this, and I let the buyers know.  But I thought about it, and realized that the open studio event is about two weeks away, and I don't have much more I want to do to the piece I plan to cut there, so maybe this is a good time to start the printing process.  It's all by hand of course, and ink takes a while to dry.  And today was a gorgeous day, sunny and maybe in the 70's.  That meant today was a good day to start the process.   I purposely put on old clothes, things I wouldn't mind if ink got on them.  Brought along a disc I was in a mood to hear, my home burned collection of songs from Townes Van Zandt, all from a two disc set of his work, a mix of studio recordings and live material.  All the big hits I know are there, and then more. If you want to know more about him, you can find my write up on the blog in October of 2019.

First step was finding the proper block, but I was able to. Then I put painter's tape on all the edges that were left on.  The previous ink was completely dry, including that under what tape there had been there, so I removed all that. With the weather the way it is, the ink that had been in my car was plenty warm enough.  Used my ink knife to pull a scoop of ink from the can, and my brayer to roll out some fresh ink.   I put on my apron, because even though I could tolerate getting ink on my clothes, I didn't want that.  Inking the block was not too difficult, as this block had been inked before, and because that old ink was dry, it was easy to see where the new ink was going down.  Meanwhile I cut a piece of paper to the right size, and counted how many sheets I had while I had it out.  (good to know for the future)  Then began the process of hand rubbing a print:

When I was satisfied, I put the new print in the rack to dry, and blotted the block to get as much ink off it as I could.  Cleaned all my printing tools and put them back in the bag.  I'll be needing them all again in the coming weeks, but I decided one print was enough for today.  What I did today was the one Molly requested, Walkin' Blues, which she had said made her think of her daughters. She wanted it without the lyrics so that is how I printed it.  I have one like that in the frame, so this one will be #2/10 in that edition.  The proof can be seen below:

One down, three to go.

Carbondale and Eclipses

 Big news today was a total eclipse, visible in some parts of this country, and for much of the country a visible partial eclipse.  Apparently, there are total eclipses about every two years, but most of these appear over the ocean, and not in this country.   However, the news mentioned that there was one town in America that was in the totality path for both today's, and the last one that was seen in this country, back in 2017, and that is Carbondale, Illinois.  I know the town well, as I used to live there,during the three years I attended, and got my MFA in Printmaking, from Southern Illinois University.  During the years I was there, I also experienced an eclipse, an annular eclipse (on May 10, 1994), which I made the subject of an artwork, a daily woodcut in my Fourth of July series.  That print, and the whole series, can be seen online on a blog I did for that series.

By my count, that makes three eclipses in a 30 year period in one town, which seems kind of unusual to me.  While there, I heard a story that for a brief time in the 1960's, the town was considered the cosmological center of the universe, which resulted in a brief hippy invasion, but that was before my time.   (I also heard a story about a professor that suddenly disliked a graduate student, tried unsuccessfully to get his MFA rescinded, and then tried to set fire to the student's trailer while he was in it, but again, that was before my time.)   I guess Carbondale is just that kind of place.

Here in the east, we were only scheduled to get a partial eclipse, but it still got full tv coverage all day, starting with the first appearance in Mexico, and then following the path of totality, from there to Vermont, passing through Carbondale along the way.   It didn't hurt that the ABC network has an affiliate in southern Illinois, not too far from Carbondale.  I think back then it was in Carterville (just down the highway from Carbondale), though I think it has moved a little now.  I know this for two reasons.  One is that when I lived there I chose not to get cable, but got my networks over the airwaves, from Illinois (ABC), from Paducah, Kentucky (NBC), and Cape Girardeau. Missouri (CBS and Fox), plus the school was seat to the local PBS station, and it's official radio station was an NPR.  (to handle all the Radio/Television students that needed some air time, a second tiny radio station was permitted to exist, WIDB, which is the one I worked at for my three years there)  Also, I remember that local ABC sent a reporter to cover our Cardboard Boat Regatta, an annual event that was participated in by many students, but required for the college's 3D students the spring semester.  When my 3D students at Kean complained about doing too much work, I showed them photos of the boats that students there made and raced around the lake for their 3D class.  It shut them up in a hurry.  I had a photo of that reporter, holding her ABC microphone, reporting on the event, but that's in storage, so you won't be seeing it here.  However, I am posting a photo of the total eclipse as it appeared in Carbondale today, taken from the television.  (news warned us that trying to take photos of the actual eclipse without special filters for the camera could damage it, and I need this camera to keep working)  They can afford the filters for their cameras.

To view the eclipse here, I made a pinhole viewer, much like the one we used in Carbondale to view that eclipse back in 1994.  Worked just as well.

Terraplane Blues part 4

 

So far it was a nice day.  I was told my brother was coming in the afternoon to take me to storage, so if I was going to go the Studio, it would have to be in the morning.  So that's what I did.  Went there directly, so I got there around 11:00.  For music I had brought a home burned disc of Sonic Youth.  This was because last night I saw Kim Gordon (their former bass player) on one of the late night shows, doing her new single I guess.  I wasn't particularly impressed, but I do have a copy of SY's Daydream Nation in the discs I took from my Studio, so I wanted to listen to that today. If you want to hear more about it, I wrote it up March of 2020 on this blog.

The first thing I did was take some photos of the publicity material for the upcoming Open Studio event.  Here are the cards, and I'll save the poster (which does have my studio name) until we get closer to the event itself:

Front and back of course.  My name and/or studio is not listed, but no one's is.  The organizer made a big deal over that green symbol of the Garden State Art Weekend, which he claims is a major achievement for the event.  We are on the poster.

As for work, I continued on the latest Robert Johnson block.  Did some work on it at home, and more at the Studio today, all on the image area.  The most obvious changes are to the closest building, the house. I took the window at the end of the house and made it two, side by side, with the rear window being boarded up.  However, I also redid the roof lines, put on better roof shingles, redid the siding, improved the gate and fence, and made some slight adjustments to the two human figures, among other things.   I like the drawing better now, but I am still not sure if it is completed.  No hurry, since the event I need it for is not for a few weeks yet.  Image can be seen below:

I brought the block home to look at some more.   If I make no changes, I will still probably go ahead and cut the margin out, since it is what I start with anyway, and wouldn't be that interesting to people who come to the Studio open house.  And if I make changes to the image area, you'll see that here.

Terraplane Blues part 3

 Since my last visit to the Studio, I spent much time online looking for source material.  I had finished (more or less) the two main human figures (male and female) as well as the third figure, the car.  The way I see it, car bodies are not unlike human bodies from an art point of view, so all three items are figures.  What I was looking for was background material.  Thought about it quite a bit, and decided I needed some buildings and yard.  I had seen some videos on YouTube in recent months that might work.  These characters, working on an old car, left me with the feeling that they were in a lesser neighborhood.  I did know that I could find videos of the worst towns in Illinois (at least according to the guy who made them), and some were towns from the area where I had lived for three years while going to school.  What these towns have in common now is that most are poor, run down from lack of high paying jobs, a lack of income and development, loss of local businesses, etc.  The result is non-urban slums.  When I was in Carbondale, I don't remember any neighborhoods that looked like these, but then again, it's been almost three decades since I lived there, so who knows? I don't remember if any of the buildings I drew were in Carbondale or the surrounding towns.  I also decided to look for some buildings from Clarksdale, Mississippi, right in delta country and arguably the home of the blues.  Robert Johnson used to live there, as did John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and many others. It was also a stop for the Illinois Central railroad, which I used in the Love in Vain print in this series.  In the end, I think the house in front was from Illinois, and the building in the deep background was from Mississippi, but it doesn't really matter.   Below are some pages from my sketchbook, with many renderings of buildings seen online:

When I arrived at the building I saw something familiar at the entrance, a large cardboard box filled with cloth printed with images.  This was Molly work, so she had to be around.  Sure enough, I found her down in our space.  She seemed impressed by the framed prints I had there (Robert Johnson prints from the recent show) and wanted to buy a copy of the Walkin' Blues print.  No hurry, as it may be a while before I see her again, but it's nice to know there is some interest in these things.  As for the box of prints, she was unloading things from her car to make room for more things she needed in her car.  She wished she could spend time working in the Studio, but had to go.

Luckily, I didn't.  I put on some music, my home burned disc of the Reverend Horton Heat (you can read about it back in November of 2021 if you care) which seemed appropriate to the story of the piece. I roughed in two buildings, some yard and driveway, and a fence and gate past the closest house.  Seemed like the kind of neighborhood where people would have a fenced-in yard near their house. The car being worked on is an AMC Javelin, from aspects of the 1968 and 1970 models.  It was that automaker's (a descendent of Hudson and Terraplane) take on the "pony car", which was defined as a low cost, smallish, high powered car, which seemed about right for what I wanted.  I don't know if these are final versions of the background items, but I wanted to get something down to see where I was at.  My goal is to have the drawing done before April 21st, so I can start cutting it at the Open Studio planned for that day.

Speaking of the Open Studio, as I was leaving the building I looked at the cards and pamphlets out on the table near the door, and found there were items for the upcoming Open Studio, same as the previous one, but with the new date, and a purple tone.  I'll have to get photos of them and post them here as we get closer.

2024 Tournament of Art part 3

 Getting to it a little faster this week...

Teams are dwindling now, just four left at this point.  Last round we had 16 at the start, and I had one art school left.  Next round was down to eight, but I still started off with one art school- University of Illinois.  However in that round, they played UConn, which looks unstoppable right now.  UConn won the game and moved on to the Final Four.  They are joined by Purdue, which also looks unstoppable right now. I did pick those two teams to make the Final Four, so that's two teams I got right. The other two teams still alive are Alabama and North Carolina State. I have to give some props to NC State, which was seeded #11, but has beaten a #1, a #3, a #4, and a #6 on the road to get to the Final Four, perhaps another example of the committee really not knowing what is going on with these teams.  (Seton Hall, left out of this basketball tournament despite coming in fourth place in the Big East, is currently in the Final Four of the NIT) 

I have the two teams I have in all the remaining games, so I am in good shape.   (this wasn't just me picking chalk, but teams I have seen play this year, and know what they can do) So in about a week I'll know if I at least picked the games right, even if all my art schools are gone now.

Terraplane Blues part 2

 I had the block back in the Studio today, continuing work on drawing the image area.  I had done some work on the block at home over the past few weeks, getting done a lot of it, though at this point, I don't know if they are final versions or not.  I wanted to have something to show to my guests earlier this week, and I did.  I have the two main figures more or less done, and the body of the car and the engine pretty much what I want.  The open hood of the car has been more of a challenge, as I now have a figure blocking part of the car (the part where the hood meets the car body) and my source doesn't.  I have drawn it many times unsatisfactorily, but I think today's version is the best so far.  In any case, I am moving on to the background for now. 

As I as doing all this drawing, I did have some music on.  I had brought with me from the pile of loose discs my home burned Morphine disc, containing their first and most of the last album.  You can read what I wrote about it back on this blog back in December of 2019 if you want to know more.

Still not showing it here, but I hope to have it all filled in and ready to show sometime next week.  I'd like to have the drawing done and be ready to cut it at the open studio in about 3 and a half weeks.  When I have something worth showing, you'll see a photo here.

2024 Tournament of Art part 2

 It occurred to me today that I never put up a post for the first weekend of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.  Maybe because this week was very busy, what with guests from out of state, and numerous medical appointments.  With games scheduled to happen tonight. I figured I had better put something up soon.

My picks worked out ok, but not great.  I had 22 right the first round out of 32 games.  Some of my upset picks worked out, some didn't, and some upsets I didn't pick at all.  Luckily most of the ones I got wrong were just teams I had as one and done, so they didn't hurt me too much.  In the second round, I had 12 of 16 right, a better percentage. For the third round, 6 of 8 teams I picked are still alive, and all my Final 4 teams and those who follow are still in it.  Of my art schools, I had Northwestern to win one game and lose to UConn in the 2nd round, and that is what happened, so I lost an art school, but got the pick right.  My other art school, University of Illinois, is still alive and playing for an Elite 8 spot.

Next week, earlier than Thursday I hope, I will post the results of the 2nd four day weekend, and let you know if I have anyone left alive. 

Studio Visitors

 Occupying a bit of my time the past few days has been a visit from one of my old college friends and her traveling party- her husband and two friends.  This is Jenny's fourth visit to my area in the past decade or so, each time with different people in her car.  I know Jenny from the three years we lived in the Italian studies house in college, from staying at her home in Northern Virginia, her visits to a few of my art shows, and her recent visits to the shore area.  In the last case, sometimes buying art.  I would think that at least some of this is that she enjoys being around me and seeing my art, but I know that part of it is that she loves New Jersey pizza and wants to get some of that treat.

I got an email from her saying that she was coming to the area, and had reserved a room in Asbury Park.  She finds Asbury and Ocean Grove to be fascinating places, especially for the architecture.  But that was back in January and I hadn't heard anything new.  So I exchanged some emails with her a few weeks ago and we hammered out the details.  She was planning to stay in Wildwood on Saturday night, then drive up to my area on Sunday, and if she got to town soon enough, pizza at Vic's, her favorite area pizza place.  I would be invited to that if it happened, but either way, we would definitely meet on Monday morning for a building tour and to see some art.  I had the days free, so it was a plan.

I had my phone ready all day, and did finally hear from her, with the sun still up. I changed and met her at Vic's, which I pass every time I go to the Studio.  I was surprised to see so many cars in the side lot and parked along the street, it looked like all the way to the ocean.  However, as I waited at a light, I saw a lot of cars seem to pull out of the restaurant's parking lot.  If any of those were cars leaving after an early dinner I was in luck.  And it turns out, this was the case and I got a spot just across from the door.  But big crowds inside (to match all those parked cars), and though she had called me from nearby Asbury, she and her party were still waiting for a table.  Eventually we got in, and we ordered her favorites- a salad with provolone and salami, and two pizzas, one with eggplant.  She loves eggplant, and Virginia pizza places just don't have it.  Yet it is very common in New Jersey pizzerias.  As for salad, she said she has been perfecting a salad dressing of similar nature.  We talked of friends and family and stuff like that.  She said she had enjoyed the trip so far, though she found Wildwood kind of boring this time of year.  Wildwood is mostly known for its boardwalk, so this isn't surprising.  It was dark when we left the restaurant, but I've driven that road so many times, I could almost do it blindfolded. 

Part 2 of the plan was to meet up at my Studio building at 10 am.  No problem getting up for that with this sunny weather.  I first stopped downstairs to fix things up and put out recent work to see.  They were just arriving as I went upstairs to the 1st floor, I guess let in by someone else.  Jenny wanted the building tour first, so we checked out the theater there on the 1st, then walked up the stairs to see the 2nd and 3rd floors, on the latter she found a painting showing the platform tents that are available to a lucky few in summer.  Eventually we took the elevator to the basement, where they saw my art and toured the spooky features of the basement.  I had organized a pile of relatively recent works, done at the beginning of the pandemic and since.  For example, my most recent supermarket print, which shows empty shelves, a cart filled with canned goods, one way signs, and masks.  This is the way stores were back then.  (Jenny remembered her husband was able to go to special seniors only hours at supermarkets) We talked about living underwater last night, and today Jenny saw the prints I had made from my narwhal relief sculpture a few years ago.  She remembered the deer print from a few years ago, and now saw its mirror image copy.   Her favorite, though, was my St Dwynwen print, a saint not acknowledged by any church, but still the center of a major holiday in Wales.  Below are some of those:

I also had out my recent Robert Johnson prints, some framed from the show they had been in upstairs.  Her male guest knew of Johnson and his place in the blues.  I also showed the latest completed unframed print, and the block drawing in progress for the next one.  Jenny particularly liked the print for "Cross Road Blues", which she got to see as a print, as well as the block.  I showed a few other blocks as well, and her guests were suitably impressed.  She wants to know more about the Nashville show, but even I don't know what is going on with that.   Below are the framed prints, and she took a photo of the one from "Love In Vain."  

We had originally talked of taking a walking tour of the town, and getting lunch somewhere, but she decided to give that up, to avoid the cold and wind, and to just start their trip back to Virginia.  Besides, she had seen the painting of the tents, and didn't want to eat pizza a second day in a row (I don't mind that) so she and her party left, and I went back downstairs to put everything away, then went home myself.  Much closer for me that for them.  Meanwhile, she has promised to look into some art opportunities for me in her area, so I may hear something about that before long.  

Blood Draw- Finished

 Took off from home about quarter after 10, made a couple of stops on the way, and ended up at the Studio  a little past 11:00.  The parking lot was full, which I assumed was for classes or something, but when I got inside the building I realized it was because they were hanging the incoming show.  Makes sense, as I think the opening reception is tomorrow.  Hanging was still in progress, so I'll look at it later. 

My plan for today was to make some minor changes to my Blood Draw block, and print it, hopefully producing the final version of the print.  The block was still not completely dry, but I didn't want to put off completion for another week, figuring I'd just clean up as I expected to do many times.  I had brought the rock/pop collection of discs today, and from that selected my home burned collection of Jayhawks, songs from the first two albums I think. What put me in mind of this was a song I heard on the radio on the way there, a song from another Americana/Alt-Country band- Uncle Tupelo. Actually I have an Uncle Tupelo album in storage, but not one that contained the song I heard today.  I wrote about this Jayhawks disc on this blog back in November 2019 if you want to know the details. 

The block, paper, ink, and printing tools were all up in my Studio, so all I had to bring with me today was cutting tools. I used some of those tools to make minor changes to the block.  I was even able to reuse the long pieces of painter's tape for the edges of the block.  Not wanting the paper to shift this time, I made sure there was plenty on ink on it, though it turned out that I still needed to re-ink here and there.  The paper didn't shift, I got a good proof of it (the paper is at a bit of an angle, so I won't make this part of the edition) and at this point I am satisfied.  I think I can declare this piece done.  The results from today can be seen below:

I don't have a particular plan for where to show this piece as of now.  It is designed to fit in one of the boardwalk frames, so when the time comes, framing it shouldn't be too difficult.   If there is another Tenants show in our building in the near future, I could be ready with three prints again, but no such exhibition has been mentioned yet.  I do want to pull a better proof, an edition worthy print, but I'm not worried about that right now.

I finished printing it before the disc finished, but then I had to clean in from my palate, my tools, and my hands, so I put on some music that felt compatible, Too Much Pork for Just one Fork by Southern Culture on the Skids, also written about in November of 2019, but in a different blog post.  

St Joseph's Day 2024

Today is a special day in the history of the Studio, St Joseph's Day.  This is a major holiday in Italy, where St Joseph is the patron saint of the nation, as well as the patron saint of woodworkers, carpenters, and for some reason, bakers of desserts.  As a result, there is a tradition of eating a particular dessert, a zeppole filled with some kind of cream. Usually cannoli cream, but I have also seen custard and whipped cream.  Any way, it's tasty.  I think it's a better tradition than eating corned beef (an English food) or drinking an excess of alcohol, which is what happens on St Patrick's Day, two days earlier.  Still, in this country, it is Patrick's holiday that gets the most attention.  Sometimes it is hard to find the proper treat, as some bakeries will produce St Patrick's Day items, but never heard of St Joseph's Day.  I found this one in a local Shop Rite yesterday and decided to buy them right then.  Low cost, and it would save my mother from driving around to find a place that has them, and often charges a lot of money for them.  See it below: 

I had mine late in the evening, my dessert for the night.  I've had better ones, but this was not bad, and a nice treat.  If you want to hear more about the holiday, and how it once intersected with printmaking, and how it impacted on  the origins of this studio,  read my post from last year on this date (it's always March 19th).  This is a common way of finding it, a zeppole fried, filled with cannoli cream with chocolate chips, and with a cherry, or dried fruit pieces.  

Studio Business

 I knew we had scheduled an artist meeting for next month's Open Studio event, so I decided it was worth checking emails today to make sure it was still on.  Around lunch time I did another check and found I had some, three of them actually.  One was a reminder of today's meeting, one was letting us know that roofers were expected to be there on March 26th, and on that day not to park by the building, as the people working on the roof might need that space to move stuff up there.  That works fine for me, since my guests are expected to be there on the 25th, and on the 26th I won't be there.  The third mail was about the incoming show (photography) this week, and that we would have to take our work off the wall.  I was going there today anyway, so I figured I would try it myself, and if I couldn't get it down, ask for help then.

Got up to the building in time.  At first I had a hard time finding the meeting, as it wasn't in the usual part of the 1st floor lobby where we've had these things in the past.  But the lights were all on and eventually I found them, behind the stairway to the 2nd floor.  No problem really, and there were chairs already out.  Not enough, so more were procured.  I only knew two of those in attendance- Joe (the organizer) and Jeanne (the current director).  Another guy I have seen before, but I don't know his name, and the other participants I didn't know at all.  

All the chairs were put away quickly, so by the time I got my camera out, they were all gone.  As a result, the above photo just shows the space we were in.

I already knew that it was planned for April 21st, though there is still some question of time, mostly because no one seemed to know when it would be.  I was told cards would be produced for it, so I guess we get those some time before it happens.  It was also decided that no refreshments would be provided by the building, though we were encouraged to have some in our studios to lure people in.  (we'll see)  And instead of a DJ, they will probably just have a sound system.  I was told better signs would be put up, so maybe I'll get more visitors than I did last time.  I'll post more information here as soon as I know it, but I may not until I get the postcards.

From there, I went right over the wall that held my works, and easily took one down from the wall.  I could reach them and no help would be needed- a good thing.  I took the one down to my Studio and placed in on top of my table.  (Since I am expecting guests in a week, I decided to keep them there, to make it easier to show these recent works.)  Also left the other stuff I was carrying there.  Back upstairs to get the other two pieces, but this time one of the plastic wires from the hanging system came with the framed work and ended up on the floor.  So I carried that down with me with the last two works.  Dropped it off at the office while I was in the basement, not my problem to deal with.  The empty wall can be seen below:

From there I took the elevator to the third floor, to see if I could find any light switches, as my guests (still don't know who is coming, other than my college friend Jenny) may expect a building tour.  Still could't find a switch for the main hallway on the 3rd, but on a sunny day there should be enough light coming in the windows to make some things visible.  Then to the 2nd floor (all lit up) to check out the glass case that has been brought up in email and at today's meeting.  The idea is that we are offered a chance to show works in that case.  It's not very big, and I could maybe fit 3 or 4 pieces at most in there.  I won't be in a hurry to have work in there.  Then on to the 1st floor, and home.

Meanwhile, I have works that can fit those 3 frames I took down today, so if there is a plan to have another tenants show following the next one, I'll have things to show and a means to show them.

2024 Tournament of Art

 So last night I watched the Selection Sunday show, as I always do, and like many people, I was surprised by the choices the committee made.  A whole lot from the big midwestern conferences, and only 3 from the Big East, despite the tough conference and wins over quad 1 teams.  Well, maybe not too surprised, as these biases are common year after year.  Also not surprising was that I had few schools from my list of art schools, places I have shown work, attended, had work published, collected, etc.  I keep track of these things as the season goes on, and I knew that most of there schools weren't having good seasons, and unless the teams won their conference tournaments and thus automatically qualified, they weren't going in anyway.  As a result, only two teams from my list of art schools will be part of the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament this year, University of Illinois, and Northwestern, the same two I had last year.   If you want to know what I did at each school, you can check last year's post.  

As is my custom, I will post updates here after each weekend, saying how my schools are doing.  

Terraplane Blues

 Another nice day today, almost 70 degrees and sunny.   Good day to head up to the Studio.  Stopped for gas on the way up, and got there around 11 am.  Didn't want to work on the Blood Draw block quite yet (more time needed to let the ink dry, and to look at it to see if anything more needs to be cut before the next proof is taken), so instead I started drawing the image area of the next Robert Johnson block- my take on his song, "Terraplane Blues."  The most obvious question I expect from viewers is exactly what is a Terraplane? I did a little research so you don't have to. I knew it was a car, but learned that it had been made by the Hudson Motor Company for most of the decade of the 1930's, and was known for being both inexpensive and powerful.  From what I have found, not bad to look at either, but it looks like a car from the 30's, and while that makes sense for a Robert Johnson song, it's not the look I go for with my art.  I'm sure I've written on this blog about my preference for cars from the 1960's and early 1970's, which is the last time I think cars looked like cars.  After that came the gas shortages and inflation, and cars reflected an interest in economy, and cars were sold based on gas milage or looking like they got good gas milage.  Maybe these are just the cars I saw on the roads and in parking lots back then as I grew up.  In any case, unless I have a reason to show something specific, I tend to go for those leaded gas 8 cylinder cars of my youth when I need something for art.  

Of course, there are no Terraplanes around now.  The Hudson company lasted until the 1950's, when it merged with other companies to form the American Motors Corporation.  That produced cars such as the Rambler, the Gremlin, the Pacer, and all the Jeeps, until it was absorbed by Chrysler in the 1980's.  I'd prefer to work with something in its automotive lineage, and I have a lot of choices.  

Over the weekend I got started at home by putting in the lyrics at the bottom, as I have done for all these Johnson prints, even though I don't need it for the Nashville show.  I did include that in one of the prints for the current Ocean Grove show.  Like most blues songs, and a lot of Johnson's, the main theme seems to be about sex, and though on the surface, the song seems to be about a car, there are many double-entendres related to car repairs.  The line heard most in the song is "Who been driving my Terraplane, for you since I been gone?"  And he didn't mean it about his car.  The lyric that I decided to work with was, "Got a short in this connection, hoo well, babe, it's way down below."  My backwards lettering can be seen in a photo of the block below:

I doubt that these letters are the final versions, but they are place holders for now.  It's the same number of characters as the last one, but I guess due to differences in word lengths, this time I needed three lines for the text.

Today I started working on the image area.  I roughed in two figures, basing them on photos in a reference book I had in the Studio, plus my own artistic training.  There are also parts of a car, based on sketches made from the internet, though I will wait until the drawing is done to tell you about what I chose.  And as is my custom, you'll have to wait until the drawing is done before I post it here.  But it has been begun.  Of course there was music, as Molly wasn't there, so I brought some old ones I burned myself- my copy of Generation Terrorists from the Manic Street Preachers (if you want to know how this guy from New Jersey ended up with a double vinyl album not released in this country, go to a blog post found in June 2022.  No ink to clean up, but I felt like drawing some more, so when that disc ended, I put on my copy of Ash's album 1977, which you can read about back in July of 2020.   The two albums seem to go together.

Blood Draw part 21

 Another beautiful spring day, unlike the extremely windy day we had yesterday.  Sunny, but the wind was so strong that it felt below freezing all day.    Made my way up to Ocean Grove by around 11:00.  Brought two discs with me today, and a plan.  The plan was to pull a proof of the new Blood Draw block, to see where I am at with it.  

First step was to stop off at the office and look into a question regarding rent that the boss hit me with by email the other day, but it turns out that is resolved now, so I am not getting kicked out this month.  Back in my space I pulled out a fresh sheet of Rives Light Weight and the discs, got all my inking and printing tools ready to go, and got started.  

Put on the first disc-some from the Gun Club, and old studio favorite that you can read about back on November of 2019 if you want to know more.  I put out some fresh ink and rolled up the block, now altered a bit since the last time I printed it.   I seemed to be making good progress, but I saw the paper had slipped a little at one point, and once that happens, there isn't much more that can be done.  At least I was mostly done with it.  So I hung it up to let it dry.  Results can be seen below:

The good news is that all the things that I fixed with new cutting are better than they were.  The bad news is that thanks to the paper slipping, there are marks I don't want and did not intend, and I can't use it for an exhibition. As long as this one is printed, I will spend time looking at it and decide if there is anything more that needs to be done with this block, or if I just need to do a better printing of it.

First disc ended, so I put on the second one, an official copy of Vitalogy by Pearl Jam, which you can read about on this blog back in September of 2023.  Took care of all that, packed up, and went home.