Arrabbiata in Iowa

Got some important e-mail from my friend in Iowa, John Siblik. He's out at Upper Iowa University, where he's been teaching for a while. We had been talking about his school hosting a show of my work for years, and we finally set things in motion earlier this year. (this is why I've been building all those boxes for the past few weeks) Today's e-mail included a proof of the postcard. I had sent him a disc with some images and he chose the one above for the card front. It's one of my best received prints and has never been on a postcard, so I think it's a good choice. The print is called A New Year for America, and it brings together news stories that happened in all 50 states a few weeks before and after New Years Day of 2003. The trick was figuring how to fit them all into the one composition. After that was the process of drawing the 24"x36" composition in reverse on the block, then cutting it all out. The whole thing took about 4 months, at the time the most I had ever spent on a single block.

The original e-mail had the image of the card front (print with my name underneath), but not the card back. I left him a few messages and an e-mail about that and he found me on my cell just before my afternoon class. It's good that he did, because we were able to correct a few things from the first proof before it goes to the printer. Later in the evening he sent me the corrected version of the card back, and it looks good. I'll post it when the show is a little closer. Meanwhile I can tell you that the show is called "America" (John chose the title to go along with the image on the card, and it can apply to all the other work in the show) and will be on display from November 13th through December 18th at the Bing-Davis Memorial Gallery at Upper Iowa University in Fayette. I'll post more details when we get closer.