Taking Care of Business

 

Today was a day to take care of business up in Ocean Grove.  Haven't heard anything new from anyone up there, but automated systems are working.  Over the past week or so, I have received notices for 5 sign-ups for my April classes, including 4 for drawing, so I have to think that will run.  Still, I had many questions for Nichole, plus I've had framed works hanging around the dining room here where I live, and would like to have that space back again.  We never did lose cable or electricity, though we did get a good snow last week (officially 18"), so I've spent a bit of time over the last week shoveling snow.  Four times on last Saturday alone, just to keep the front steps clear and to be able to open the front door, then a bunch more on Sunday to clear the cars and make a path over that way, then many times during the week to make a dent in all the snow and ice deposited by the brief snow plowing we got, trying to make room for a car on the street.  Been limiting myself to a half hour at at a time, as the last thing I need is to over stress myself and strain a muscle or cause myself some damage.  We had another winter storm come though this past weekend, but not much fell here, which didn't bother me at all.  Today was the first day above freezing in a while, but those above freezing temperatures came with some rain.  But I really wanted to get up to the JSAC and settle some things, so as soon as we had a break in the rain, I loaded my car and went up there.

Nichole was in, so I left everything in the car and took care of my business with her first.  Although she had mentioned in an email that postcards for the new show would be available the week of the 1st, we are now in the week of the 7th, and no cards yet.  She does think she'll make them soon.  Next thing, hanging locations and times- what she has planned for me is the side wall, between the photo studio and the doorway toward route 71, which is a space my work has been before.  My work has hung on various walls in that cavernous first floor hallway, but that space will be fine.   And I'll have help to hang it tomorrow, so we have a plan for that.  They even have more wire, so even though I will have mine, we may not need it. On to teaching.  I've been looking for the past week for links to registration on the main site, but so far I haven't seen any.  How have all these people signed up, and where can I direct people in the future?  Nichole insisted that they have been there, and I had her show me on her computer.  The home page for our facility had more things on her computer than mine does.  Including the links to the new classes.  Why not mine?  She really didn't know, and I can't get in touch with the person who is my usual computer advisor, so I still don't know.  It could be the age of my computer or its operating system, and it just doesn't read the internet the same way.  My computer is old (by these standards anyway), but she showed me some things I could try to bring up what I'm looking for.

Meanwhile, I am getting the notifications about students and I've seen the links to the class she sent me, so I can see what is being advertised. This led me to another issue.  The image she chose to accompany the description of my beginner drawing class is the one at the top of this blog post.  It's a fine drawing of a hand, by a student (college) and a process (chiaroscuro drawing) that I will be teaching there, but as part of the advanced class, not the beginner class that people are signing up for right now.  I can teach this process to anyone who has the materials (really not much different from the shoe drawing we open with) but conte crayons don't appear on the materials list for this class, so is this deceptive advertising?  I had mentioned this in an email to Nichole, but gotten no response, so I brought it up again to her directly.  Made the same basic points- if the students who take this class really want to learn chiaroscuro drawing I  can show them the basics, but if they follow my published list, they won't have the necessary conte crayons. Do we change the class or the image?  Not a demand from me as much as pointing out an issue she may have.  What she decided was to change the image, and she found a mixed value student charcoal drawing I had sent that she thought could sell the class well.  Not as nice as the hand drawing, but still impressive.  That will do.  (Technically that is also something from my advanced class, but at least they will have the materials and knowledge in the beginner class if they want try it.  As it turns out, that hand above wasn't assigned, but a student applying a process done in class and materials used in class to a homework problem, and doing a very good job with it.)  She plugged in the new image to where it needed to go, and quickly it propagated to all the places it needed to go. 

With all those items settled, I took care of some things there, which meant that I brought in the artwork I had out in my car.  For now, it's stashed in my Studio space, so I can grab it tomorrow when it's time to hang the show.  And I brought some of my packing stuff back out to the car, even though Molly hasn't been there for a few weeks.  At least she hasn't picked up the check for next month's rent yet, which means she hasn't spent much time there. And then I headed for home.

Back home, my JSAC home page still didn't look like hers, but I did find a way to get to that information from the main page, and that's good enough for me to send out some advertising of my own.