Big Room for a Small Group

We're now deep into the holiday season, and winter weather is all around us.  It snowed all day yesterday.  The accumulations around here were a few inches, but down toward Philadelphia they had almost a foot.  As predicted, overnight things warmed up, the snow turned to rain, and by this morning it was all gone.  Another wave of snow is predicted for tomorrow (forecasters predictions for the start range from 3:00 am to 3:00 pm), and even though the roads were fine today, sometimes the repeated threats can cause people to get nervous.  So maybe that was a reason why we only had four people for tonight's monthly critique group, or maybe it was because we shifted it to the 2nd Monday, or maybe it was holiday fatigue.  With the print shop messy with months of accumulated clutter (having the bigger table shop gave us an alternative space to work on everything), Molly wanted our meeting to be anywhere but there, and pushed for using the cafeteria space (no stage functions going on tonight) instead of the large but dusty table shop.

The big surprise tonight was that one of our small crowd was Jane, a long time regular, but one who has been missing for more than a year.  She took a leave from the group late last year in anticipation of giving birth to her first child, and though she has occasionally written that she planned to attend, this is her first appearance in 2013.  (to be fair, she did manage to catch my Fourth of July installation in Belmar this past February)  The critique group has often done some kind of holiday (homemade) gift exchange, and last year it was suggested that we put together some baby gifts instead.  A gift bag of such things has been sitting on Molly's press since last January waiting to be distributed, with a special print from me in there, referenced a few times on this blog as a "secret project".  Jane being here, I could finally make it public.  I'll save the story of it for a separate post.

Thus, the above board, art by four participants.  Starting from the upper left (clockwise) is one of Molly's screen printed towels, my secret woodcut, more screenprinted towels, some knitted items from Jane, and an encaustic painting from Sheilagh.  Below, two child sized sweaters from Jane.