The Rest of My Day in Belmar

After a few slices of pizza, it was time to get back to work around the Boatworks.  I picked up my contribution to the Fibers show, which officially closed last night.  Then it was time to deal with the next show, the Grass Roots exhibition.  This is a show of art made by people who took classes and workshops there in Belmar this year.  My woodcut class ran three times in 2014, so anyone who took it was eligible to put something in this show.  This was announced back in the spring, and I reminded all my summer people about it during the classes themselves.  Once entries opened on the show, I reminded everyone again, either when I ran into them in person or by e-mail.  In the end my class will be represented by 7 woodcut artists.

Much of the work was done in class, but artists could bring in things started there and finished later.  For example, above the prints to the left (Sue) and right (Joan) look like they are probably ones pulled there in the back room of the Boatworks.  The one in the middle (Lauren) was first proofed in my late summer class, but those were black ink on a variety of white papers, while this one uses chin colle and a series of Japanese papers of varying tones, which means she was paying attention to my demonstration of this technique and found a way to adapt it to her work.  Below, Mary's piece (left) is the one she showed me in progress at the last critique, and I'm glad to see she got it to a state worth showing.  We printed the center part of Beverley's piece (middle top) in class, but she added the cloth border later, while I see no images of Denise's print (middle bottom) in my records, but it seems familiar so perhaps she was working on her design back in the spring.  The white line cat print on the right (Stan) is a print that he finished during our late summer class.

These seven pieces are among the 54 total works in the show, a mix of paintings, drawings, photographs, fabric constructions, and other items.  From what I saw of those other media today, I think we printmakers stack up nicely.  It opens next weekend with a reception on Saturday from 5 to 7 pm.