Life in Ocean Grove

A rare day when I had no place I had to be, so I eventually went up to the Studio.  However I don't even have a project to work on right now.  Been doing some consulting on organizing a local print show, and this past week I covered printmaking for my Intro to Art class, and Molly and I are hatching plans for a return of the critique group, and I've given some thought to my holiday card for this year (but I never show that here until Christmas Day), plus working with various college students, but no new project since I finished my mermaid prints a few weeks ago.

So I wasn't cutting or printing today, but there's always work to do.  One such task was to empty out some stuff from car and to bring it into the Studio.  Back in the summer I had a class in Belmar, and I've been toting around a lot of those materials in my car ever since.  Car will be due for servicing soon, so I may as well clear out some of it.  So a crate full of printing tools, a bunch of inks, and pieces of wood are now in the Studio and can stay there until needed again, which will likely be there in the Studio anyway.

As I entered the building, I noticed a Christmas tree was up in the hall over by the stairs to the 2nd floor, and lots more Christmas stuff stacked up all around the lobby, ready to be installed, and here it is not even a week since Halloween.  The office door was open so I asked about all this and was told it was part of an effort to get the whole building done by the end of the month.  We still have a lot of November left, so I assume they will get all the trees and stuff done, but that reminded me of the new back lot.  When I first noticed work going on back there I asked about that and was told that it was the process of finally paving and otherwise improving the back parking lot, and there was a goal of getting it done before all the Christmas shows.  A lot of work was rapidly done- tearing up bits of old pavement, knocking down the old retaining walls and replacing them with new ones, evening out the sand layer.  but to my eyes it doesn't look like much has happened in recent weeks.  Still, I have nothing of my own to show, so here's an update on what's happened back there.

We do have a lot of sand, but I don't think I want to park on this until we get something more stable to drive over.

I'm not sure what's going on with this new driveway entrance.  The angle is attractive, but the width at the bottom of the ramp is the same as it always was, so this is not going to allow for two lanes.  Maybe there will be some small parks installed.

They did tear up a lot of old asphalt, so that's something.

Let's hope there's something more exciting to report next week.