Christmas Card 2021 part 2

Drove up to Ocean Grove today and saw Nichole's car in the lot, so I knew that would be my first stop after I dropped off my backpack and checked out the status of my tack board.  I wasn't expecting that things would already be fixed, and they weren't, but at least it didn't seem to be hanging any further from the wall, and it hadn't come crashing down yet.  Onto the office, and once Nichole was off the phone, I brought her to my space to show her what the problems were.  (as I also expected, she never saw my email from the week before last)  She agreed it was a problem, and thought it might be fixed tomorrow, along with the ongoing light problem we've had since at least October.  

She went back to the office and I got to work on one of my tasks for today, clearing the top of that shelving unit.  This would need to be done in advance of any repairs, plus I was worried that if the board came down, all of Molly's glass plates (examples can be seen above in this critique scene) would be smashed.  I put all the glass and her discs on her low table, the only horizontal space in that room that was cleared.  Everything else that was hers went onto shelves in that same unit.  The only thing that was mine on that unit was my boom box, which I had left behind there for Molly's use (she likes radio, and I left some discs she likes) and for my own use on days I go and bring in some discs of my own.  I put that on an empty wooden chair by the windows, where I knew an empty electrical outlet was located.

For music I had brought my pop/rock book of discs, and started with Kicking the Toybox by Twang Bang.  This is a very odd album, which I can't really classify.  It came from my former student Tom Huck, who gave it to me at a time when we were in the same place.  All he seemed to know was that the band was two guys who used to busk under the El in Chicago, who somehow won a contest that sent them to Japan, where they were given studio time to record this album.  Music styles vary widely, though it does include a song about the game of Rock/Paper/Scissors, which I have heard is popular in Japan.  Also one about Pinocchio. It's that kind of album.  I made a copy, put the original on my shelf, and the copy became part of my Studio library.  When that ended, I put on a greatest hits collection by Tom Waits, which may be the only record that can follow the other one. I wrote about this back in February of 2020 if you want to learn more.

As for art, today I was working on my annual holiday card.  This tradition goes back to my time in Carbondale, taking an image from art history and altering it to be a Christmas scene.  As I wrote last time, the problem was that I have no watercolors these days (probably all in storage), and these have always been done in color.   I do have plenty of materials for black and white, and I doubt anyone knows more black and white artwork than I do.  As long as I have access to the internet, I can probably find anything I need to see.  So I thought about favorite artists who sometimes worked in black and white. I've done one based on a Masereel woodcut before, so I didn't want to do him again if I could avoid it.  I looked at Goya, whose series Los Capricos is one I always enjoyed, but none of those etchings seemed like good choices for a Christmas scene.  I used to have books of Rouault as well, who is best known for paintings, but also did woodcuts in black and white, and I came close to choosing one, but decided to go another way.  What did I choose?  For that you have to wait until Christmas day.  But today I cut the block, a small piece of woodcut so it went fast.