Warming Up

It's a new year, perhaps time for a new direction in my art.  Not buying it?  OK, this is what happens when your plastic liquid laundry detergent bottle springs a leak.  If you're lucky, like I was, this leak occurs on a piece of old corrugated cardboard that you don't need.  I'm pretty sure that this resulting piece is not archival.  Still, maybe I should save it for Tim from our critique group.  He would get it.

Other than the most recent Christmas card, I haven't had much to show here in more than a month.  Not  that I haven't been busy.  In that time I've had to deal with a lot of school stuff (fall grades, trying to keep up with my constantly changing spring class schedule), the current Black and White group show, and I'm helping to coordinate a five person show that goes up in about three weeks.  The postcard design has been sent to the printer, so next on the agenda is putting together the press release.  This isn't a solo show, but I'll have more work in this exhibition than any I've had since 2008.

Despite the lack of new work shown here, I do have some things in progress.  I started a new smallish print a few weeks back, but the finished piece is going to be a surprise for someone, a person who is known to occasionally look at this blog.  I'm documenting all the steps as usual, but I won't post them here until it's all done.  Today the outside high temperatures dropped into the low 20's (wind chills in teens and single digits) and is expected to stay there for a few days.  I won't be taking any strolls over to the Asbury art galleries, or up to see the boardwalk, but I can certainly handle the walk across the parking lot at the Studio building, and now our space's new windows don't come with drafts of frigid air.  Today was a cutting day for the new project.  Got through all the negative spaces in about 2.5 hours.  Put the block away, leaving just the pile of splinters shown below.

The goal is to get this project done by the end of the month, leaving me time for my installation of the Fourth of July in Belmar in early February.  Once that's done, I hope to get back to my boardwalk series, but I'm thinking I won't be making any location visits any time soon.