Art is always happening

 

One thing about being an artist is that you always have something going on.  It never ends.  I am rarely bored as there are always things coming your way.  I had a conversation about this phenomenon just last week with Lil' Bobby Duncan (who is probably 20 years older than I am) toward the end of our opening in Ocean Grove.  (the patron for his current mural project has already started talking to him about the next one, and the commissions for paintings and sculptures keep coming) Over the past few days, my experience and abilities in art have been called on often. 

Yesterday, I went up to the Jersey Shore Arts center in the early afternoon.  They are to be open on Saturdays for the duration, but earlier in the day I couldn't go because I was teaching drawing to my niece.  I wanted to talk to Nichole about things related to the postcard, which I finally saw last Friday, and distributed a few that I took with me that night to interested people early this past week.  One point that was raised by someone getting a card was the lack of information.  The card contains no street address and no phone number, issues for a lot of people who might be interested in the show. There is a web address, but that may not work for the older crowd.  However, while Nichole was there, she was very consumed with preparations for a tea event, also scheduled for that day, so I just grabbed a small handful of cards from the lobby, and I'll try to talk to her during the week. But I did help out some, as I knew a few of the visitors from the BAC- Sandy and her husband Dave.  I knew that she knew Molly (I last saw her at Molly's opening in Manasquan several months ago), but she said she had seen those works already.  Sandy's biggest concern was how to get into the building in the future.  Her husband, again a few years older than me, has issues with walking himself, and was using a walker to get around. They had used his handicap placard to park in the designated spaces near the foot of the ramp, but the door at the top was locked from the outside, so she ended up helping him up the front steps.  I told her no problem, that the door could be opened from inside (panic bar) and pointed to Nichole as the boss. As they left, I saw them talk to Nichole, who showed them the door to the ramp, so I assume they found a safe way out.  When I was using a walker, I had to use that ramp from time to time.  Now that I get around with a cane, the front steps are easier, and I have a key to that door.

Late at night I found a posted video from Amy Kucharik on my YouTube feed, videos chosen based on my past interest.  Amy was a former student of mine in Carbondale, who went on to a musical career that got its start in Carbondale, and a few years ago I contributed an image to a lyric video she was creating for an old song of of hers, posted to YouTube.  That piece was one of last woodcuts I did before my surgery, back when I had my real tools, and a camera, so you can see it online.  Her latest video was promoting an upcoming event in Maryland, where she will be concentrating on blues (there was even a blues book in the background), which is of interest to me, longtime proponent of blues music.  Perhaps I'll send her a related email soon.

The other thing I was doing on the computer was the latest step in an ongoing project.  My current computer dates back to 2009, and one of these days, it will stop working. I already have a new computer, but haven't used it much yet, as the old one is still working, and I have literally thousands of documents and images on the old one. The past few days I have been updating a document, which is a complete list of all my exhibitions, solo and group, going back to the beginning.  It hadn't been updated since 2014, and I decided I should, and then email it to myself, so I can eventually download it to the new computer.  I have kept my blog updated, so I just went to that, copied down information about all shows I had, and added them to the document.  Took several days, but now that's all done, right up to my current show in Ocean Grove.  I finished it before dinner last night, and that last step was to send it to myself at my college box.  

This morning I was watching the CBS Sunday morning show and they had a story about Shirley Woodson, a contemporary artist who has her first solo show at the big museum in her hometown of Detroit.  She a painter, using a modern style, very colorful, so borrowing elements of expressionism and fauvism, but with realistically proportioned figures.  Never heard of her, but there are a lot of paintings out there, one reason I switched to woodcut.  I did like the paintings shown, so I am not surprised she is finally getting a big show.  If she was part of our recent show in Ocean Grove, these would have been the most interesting and skilled paintings in the show.  There were also a bunch of news from Kyiv, where a Russian invasion in going on, but I'll save that for another post later.

Later on in the morning, I got a call from a surprising person, Tom Huck.  Another former student from Carbondale, and one I had a big effect on, as he went on to take up woodcut as a grad student, and has had a huge career, which he knows he owes me, so I have benefited from knowing him, from time to time.  It is from him that I had a paid visit to his Studio in St Louis, some of the major collections that I am a part of, and some group portfolios that have been shown widely.  I hadn't gotten a call from him in a while, and my attempts to contact him via phone and email went nowhere, so I assumed he had gone on with life.  Somehow he had found this number, and I was around, so I took the call.  It's a big project involving the Country Music Hall of Fame, and the Hatch Show gallery/print shop (both in Nashville) and he wants me in on it.  The goal is a medium-small black and white print, with the subject of blues legend Robert Johnson, and since I started him on the path to blues fandom (see, I told you), he decided I had to part of it.  A good deal for me, as his print projects get shown in a lot of museums, and end up as part of collections.  Plus, it's not due for almost a year, so I have plenty of time to get things done.  First step is choosing a lyric, and while all my Robert Johnson is currently in storage, it's all available online, and I know it well, so finding something I can adapt should be easy. If I came up with an idea for Amy's lyric video project, I can come up with an idea for this one.

So projects just keep coming.