Yet More Ocean Grove Business

 

I decided to go up to the Studio today to get a little work done, but I saw Nicole's car there, so I decided to see her first and settle some new questions.

A few days ago she had sent out a mass email about a schedule change in the film series, but also added a thing about fall classes.  Of interest to me is that she mentioned a printmaking class among them.  This surprised me, as a few days before, she had said she didn't plan to do any fall classes except continuing a few summer ones if there was interest.  So I sent an email asking about it, and she confirmed that she decided to put printmaking on the schedule, not knowing if there was a demand or not, since no one signed up last time.  The next day she sent out something about a new way to check the rosters, but I hadn't dealt with that yet.  She was in her office today, so I got a lot of business taken care of.  

One thing I had noticed was that this new class was 6 weeks instead of the four we had always had, yet the price was the same.  Wasn't sure how that would work out.  In the past the cost of all supplies came out of my pocket, the reason for my concern.  She said that the building could pay some cost of supplies, which would make the difference.  As far as doing an open house/demonstration, she agreed that me demonstrating made more sense than having the students just come in and try stuff (mentioned my safety demonstration, which is a regular part of woodcut), one reason it would not work to have potential students try cutting with sharp tools.  After all, when I brought my Intro students through the wood shop at the university (furniture class), some were very fascinated to see the place, and some were scared to come in the room with drill presses, table saws, band saws, and other wood shop equipment.  (those tools were in the hands of the students who had received training on those, never my beginning students who were just getting a look at what was offered)  We also talked about other forms of printmaking, and even acrylic paints, should this woodcut again fail to get any customers.  Maybe I'll send those student work photos again.

The other good thing about a demonstration is that many new students might not know what woodcut is. That is sad, but true. I've done a lot of those before, so I could do it again.  

We have about a week before the registration opens up, and about a month before it closes, so we have time to figure all this out.