All Part of the Job

Haven't spent any time working on any particular prints this week, but that doesn't mean I haven't been working.

For example, on Sunday I met Molly at our favorite buy-a-drink and get a free omelet place to discuss a project that she's had in the works for a while.  It's a big post-Sandy public spaces thing involving the creation of tables that will be installed around the Asbury area.  Molly has been producing tabletops since before we had the Studio, but she's not much for legs and bases.  Since I built the extremely sturdy worktables in our Studio, she approached me about the possibility of helping her with this.  So yesterday I put in some time carefully measuring and sketching the construction of the worktables in order to remind myself of how I made them.

A brilliant and economical design it turns out, and strong enough to handle years of abuse, but these aren't fancy pants tables- they're built for heavy work and they look like it.  That will do for some of them, but Molly may need nicer versions for some of the planned locations.  So after I was done in the Studio, I drove out to my local home center to both price the kind of materials I had used when I made them 8 years ago, and to see what other things they had to work with.  I continued the process today, stopping by a millwork place in Manasquan to see if they had something that would make a classier table leg than the 2x4's I used in my construction (yes, but not cheap).  I plan to look at a few more things, then put together some options for Molly to consider.

I continued my framing project, by picking up a piece of glass.  Most of my work is framed behind plexiglass, which is lighter in weight and has much much less risk of breaking in shipping or transit, but  is considerably more expensive, pegged to the price of oil.  Since this piece will be handed off directly to the new owner, and it's not so large that the weight will be an issue, I went with glass.  I'll finish putting it together in the next few days.

Being an artist means always having to be out there looking for opportunities, and that includes teaching.  Today I stopped by a relatively new gallery in the area, a place that is looking to also offer some art classes.  They seemed open to the idea of some print classes, so I exchanged contact info.  If something develops, I'll post some details.  Meanwhile, my latest class in Belmar went up on the website this morning, giving me three weeks to recruit myself a bunch of students.

So I haven't touched a block or print over the past few days, but all this stuff I've done over the past few days is work related.