A Difficult Journey

About a week or so ago I got a call from Steve McKenzie, who I've known for many years from his involvement at PCNJ.  Several years ago he recruited me to be part of a relief print show at what was then called the Rahway Arts Guild, my first show in that building.  He stopped by my Studio and ended up choosing 9 pieces.  If I remember correctly, he was teaching some woodcut classes at the Newark Museum for a while.  It turns out that in recent years he helped create a publicly accessible print shop there in the city, The Newark Printshop, in the city's college district.  The reason for the phone call was that he was curating a print show at a new nearby art center, and he wanted me to be a part of this one, too.  A few days later, having checked my calendar and gotten more details, I told him I'd do it. 

My biggest concern was how to get the work there.  The gallery is in a fairly respectable part of Newark, a square mile or so that includes the train station, the Performing Arts Center, the arena, the colleges, the library (I'm in their print collection), the museum, and some big businesses.  However, all that popularity means huge amounts of traffic, lack of parking, and the confusion of dealing with unfamiliar streets.  Exact mode of transportation could be worked out later, but it was clear I should pick work that would be easy to transport.  Decided to go with some supermarket prints.

They are bold and popular with crowds, and easy to carry around.  Steve had chosen several for the Rahway show, so I knew he liked them.  However, I didn't want to repeat those specific prints, or any others that have been in shows he probably saw.  So I chose these two, two of the last three completed. We were requested to deliver them between Monday and Friday this week.

Weather reports predicted heavy rains for the first few days of the week, but Thursday looked good- sunny and less humid.  That gave me a few days to consider my options.  Steve gave me little confidence that I'd find reliable parking near the gallery.  One possibility was to take the train to Newark Penn Station and just walk from there.  Almost all of the trip would be a straight line down Raymond Blvd, a major street through the heart of the business/arts district, and a reasonable distance to cover on foot.  The more expensive option, with round trip train tickets up near $35 now, and there are gaps during he day when the train doesn't run.  The other possibility was to drive.  In the past I have parked at the Newark Museum, just blocks from the highway, and also a straight line walk from the gallery down Washington St.

This morning I made the call to go with the train, which I would take from Manasquan, where my parents are a short walk from the train station.  Running later than I had wanted, I dropped my car at their house, carried my wrapped pieces up to the station, but realizing I should have more money, I stopped at the bank next door.  By the time that was done, the train had come and gone.  Checked the posted schedule and the next one was two hours away, a schedule that would put my return into rush hour.  So  I went with the back up plan.  Walked back to my car and drove directly to Newark.  I had taken the precaution of writing out both train and car directions for myself last night.  And all might have been fine, except that in my head I believed I needed to go to exit 15 off I-280, but it turns out I needed exit 14.  And although my notes included all he streets between the gallery and my destination, I had no maps beyond that, leaving me with nothing by my internal sense of direction and my memories of the street names I had studied last night.  Not the most efficient way of navigating.  Mostly it was running across a street name I knew, following it for a while until it lead me to another one (or I realized I was heading in a wrong direction), gradually working my way back to the neighborhood between the gallery and the museum.   Signs were small and sometimes misleading- I drove past the driveway for the museum parking lot twice without seeing it.  In the end, I pulled into a commercial lot that turned out to be right around the corner from the one I had been seeking.

I grabbed my stuff and headed down the street.  Tried calling the gallery director as I left the lot (as had been suggested), but I couldn't get a signal around there.  So I just called when I got to the door and someone came down to let me in.  The gallery is in a large loft space (formerly a t-shirt business if I understand the sign on the door) reminding me of a group show I had in Union City back in 1998.  I unpacked my pieces, filled out the intake form, and received a short stack of the cards you see below.

More than 40 artists are listed, some names I know well, but many I don't.  The place is called the Index Art Center, recently relocated to 237 Washington Street in Newark.  The opening reception is on Saturday, July 25th from 7 to 11 pm.  Considering how much trouble I had navigating Newark on a sunny afternoon, I'm pretty sure I don't want to try it at night, and long drives on the Parkway in summer can be a big hassle.  The show remains on display through August 15th.  Check the gallery website for hours, etc.

Getting back to my car was simple, and I asked the parking attendant for the best route back to 280.  I followed his recommended path and spotted the elevated road, but only saw a sign for east bound, and I  needed to go west.  Maybe this was a case where you go one way and eventually come to a u-turn, but I didn't want to explore that yet.  Meanwhile, I continued under the overpass, looking for a place to maybe turn around, and I saw a sign for Bloomfield Avenue.  Finally a chance to cash in on my decades of residing in Essex County.  It would take me in the opposite direction of where I wanted to end up, but it's wide and straight (unlike so many of the Newark roads I had wandered), has its own ramp to the Parkway, and I know exactly where that ramp is.  Several minutes later I was on the highway heading for home, and a good hour ahead of rush hour.

Needless to say, I'm going to think about other options for picking the work up. after the show ends in mid August.