My fall intro course ended this past Sunday. My students created some great pieces in a very short time. One of them, Zeena, did some prints on canvas bags with the phrase, “What would Foucault do” along with an image of the author. Before washing out the emulsion, we both took camera phone photos of the stencil and ink residue. This is my version after a fun with Photoshop.
This coming week, I’m teaching a continuing ed class at the Corcoran College of Art. We have 5 days of down and dirty screenprinting. Newbies will learn the basic mechanics of pulling a print, and will be good to go if they sign up for credit courses. Hopefully we will have a limited amount of screen rips.
Hope is being restored to my artistic void. My exposure machine finally arrived this past week. Still working out how to organize everything, but at least all the pieces are present. Pretty soon I will be back to creating some quality prints! One needs to have a challenging task to get into a productive mental zone. Even if it seems chaotic to others, one needs to organize their own universe of thoughts and actions.
This past annual Southern Graphics Conference was the first one I have attended. A few years ago it was held at my former college in D.C., but I was studying abroad in Italy. I heard from some of the veterans that this was a bit lacking in comparison. Some of the panels, especially the keynote were disappointing, and the demonstrations were not of a wide variety or number and therefore packed to the gills. Of course the highlight was the demo by my former instructors, called Energy to Image. I am very familiar with the process, but it always good to how someone else explains it, especially to a large audience.
As a whole, I think that VCU did a decent job. But the best part any conference are those intrinsic elements such as seeing friends, former colleagues and meeting friends of friends. It is nice to be associated with community. I just wish the banquet had enough tables for more than half the attendees and that the line for food didn’t crisscross the ballroom. Oh well, next year in Chicago!
Yay! 1st piece of equipment arrived for my studio – a McCulloch power washer!
Dennis and Sasha are right on track with this new print. It is halfway there and looking great, especially for fans of orange, like Dr. Wifey and Esq. Doug.Some more details and a bit of cold wax, then finito! Good to be back in a working studio. Brushing off 6 months of rust from my screenprinting knowledge. Plus there is always new tricks to learn from the master. P.S. Alexandria and still building like there was no housing crunch. Well location and a constant turnover of government work will keep this region busy.
Dennis O’Neil has Alexander Djikia coming into the Hand Print Workshop International studio for the next two weeks. Very excited about assisting them. Alexander will be the 2nd Russian artist that I’ve worked with at HPWI. I’m sure this will be as educational as work with the great “Lenny” Tishkov. Hope there is some vodka involved.
Life is about choices – as both Neo and Alice demonstrated. Whether to take the blue pill or the red pill? Sometimes it may be better just to hide the capsule under your tongue.
Decisions, decisions, decisions. You can weigh all the pros and cons, but it all comes down to what you know is right for you inside. The mind is logical, but the gut has it’s own insight. Anyone who has read Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” can relate to the methodology of keeping in mind that initial impulse, and referring back to it after exploring all the external justifications we can come-up with.
Trick or Treat? Definitely a Treat. We had Prof. Terry Barrett come to our Seminar class and facilitate a critique of some of our fellow grads’ works. The man showed how it can be done constructively and with many voices productively contributing. He has a new book coming out soon from McGraw-Hill, ” Making Art: Form & Meaning.”