St Joseph's Day

Another week of spring break right now, but I have plenty to keep me busy. I was in the Studio for a while today, getting ready for things coming up over the next few weeks. I unframed a boardwalk print so that I could replace it with another, to be one of my entries for the big annual show in Belmar. (still need to pick a second entry- not easy when I can't use the three dozen or so artworks I've shown there already) I had brought stuff with me to work on assembling a second mounted house print, everything except the shaped piece of wood, so that didn't get done. I ended up chatting a bit with a guest printer friend of Molly's, working on an edition due later this week. Turns out that she's recently become familiar with some of the Outlaw Printmakers, so I filled her in on some details of our adventures.

From there I did a little shopping related to this weekend's workshop. The tools and inks that I ordered should arrive any day, but some stuff will come from local sources. For example, today I picked up several sheets of scrapbooking paper in different colors and patterns, should my students want to try some collage processes. Plus things like pencils, markers, and paper towels- not special to linocut, but all useful.

In addition to all that, today is St. Joseph's Day, where Italians celebrate their nation's patron saint, and as his is the patron of woodworkers, woodcut artists should also pay their respects. And since St Joseph is also the patron of dessert bakers, we celebrate with a pastry filled with some kind of cream. The photo above is from a previous year, filled with whipped cream, but this year I had a zeppole filled with cannoli cream, my favorite.

Tomorrow- more of the same of everything, except the zeppoles.