Superarket Panic part 13

 Had a lot of other things to deal with of late, and realized it had been well over a month since I wrote about anything new (art) I was doing.  Also had some email exchanges with Nichole in Ocean Grove, who I hadn't seen in a while, due to storms, power outages, jigsaw puzzles, heat waves, and work related trainings. Not much has been going on up at the Studio lately, so there wasn't much to report. I stopped by the other day to leave a rent check, found that the windows had been replaced, and the new door knob may be coming soon.  The building is still closed to the public, which keeps things quiet.

But it seemed a good day to work on some art.  I do have a block in progress, my latest supermarket piece, so I had something to work on. Grabbed the block, a bag of tools, and hit the road. Weather today was not as hot as some days we have had, but the humidity has come back.  Several cars in the lot, so I figured the alarm was off and it was safe to go inside.  I had heard Nichole's voice coming from the 1st floor. so went that way first.  She was there, with another person, who I assumed was a potential tenant.  She said they were heading for the basement (via the central stairway), so I told her I'd see her down there and took my usual route. When I saw her and this other person down there, Nichole was showing her the open studio where the tintype place had been.  I had met the artist a few times back in the spring as she was working hard to set the place up, building things, etc.  Then she wasn't around, like so much else this summer. Reminded me of one of the 1st floor tenants from years ago, a quilt studio that had been created in classroom #1.   A row of new sewing machines, shelves with bolts of fabric, work tables, etc.  I was in the building on the day of the grand opening, so stopped by to see the place. Unfortunately, I never saw it open again.  Later Herb said she got sick and never came back, and later he took possession of her inventory and was trying to sell it and get some money back.  What with covid 19 shutting down all visitors to the building, I don't know if the tintype place even had a grand opening. (she had a main location in Asbury, so I guess if anything was happening, it was there) Nichole was showing the empty room to the visitor, so I guess the tintype person had moved on.  The visitor had remarked about the dampness in the basement, an ongoing problem down there in the summer.  Nicole mentioned a plan to get more dehumidifiers going soon, but with no activities going on this summer, I guess it hadn't been a priority.

In my own space, I settled down to work. Molly had left both fans running at full blast, and had for days, so I shut down her box fan and turned my pedestal fan in my direction.  For music I brought something I had heard on the radio the other day, an album from Chuck Prophet from several years ago. No Other Love was one of his bigger hits, which means I am probably one of the few people with a copy.  No regrets on my part, I like the 2002 album. Hard to classify (the internet calls it alt-country, which is as close as anyone would come), but a lot of good songs. A lot of it is acoustic/low-fi, which works better in the summer, as the constantly running heat in the winter would drown it out.  When that ended I switched to Repercussion from the dB's, but I wrote about that earlier this year.  

According to the blog I hadn't worked on this since mid July, so it's about time I got it done.  Today I cut more of the floor, the deep background, parts of the shelves, and much of the "one way" wall at the far left.  Unfortunately, the bag of tools I grabbed today just had my class tools in it, not my better personal tools, so I decided to leave some of the detailed areas until I have better tools to carve it with.   But most of the cutting is done.  Time to start thinking about the next piece.