More of the Same

 

Today I picked up where I left off yesterday, going through all this old artwork and deciding what I don't need anymore.  I do have a lot of my old artwork.  Today I tackled the heaviest box I had, which I knew from when I packed it, contained a lot of things from my school years.  It's not that the work in that box is so heavy,  but that the box has no handles or anything to grip, so moving it is very difficult.  What does it contain?  There are a few things from my first ever art class, 2D Foundations with H.E. "Coach" Coleman.  Saved those.  Paintings on paper from my early painting classes- paper coated with shellac, poured on and spread with a piece of mat card, which would allow it to be used with oil paints once dried.  (a trick from our painting professor, Bill Barnes) Some I will keep, some will be disposed of.  I had forgotten I had some of these, so I was glad to see them.  Lots of life drawing from my undergrad days, on various size sheets of paper.  Some were just plain bad- poor proportions, no foreshortening, strangely drawn limbs.  Glad to get rid of that kind of thing.  Early prints from my old days, quality varying.  The etchings and monotypes represent some of my earliest prints, before I even tried my first woodcut.  Kept some, tossed some.  Watercolors, complete with the old watercolor block they had been cut from.  None were great, but kept the better ones for historical reasons.  Prints and drawings from my Montclair days.  Still primitive compared to what would come later, so I kept what still interested me and tossed the rest.  My paintings from this era were done on canvas, so what I have left is elsewhere, still stretched over wood stretchers, some with frames.  (most of my paintings from that era were removed from their stretchers and rolled up, and destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, so I don't have to dispose of them now)  So I could eat, everything I decided to keep was put back into the large box, but eventually I'll take out the small stuff and pack it elsewhere, and put the large drawing pads from yesterday in there.  Then create new handles for the box (I have an idea how to do that) and take it to my rack in the basement.  

I have found some related things in these boxes, not mentioned before.  Found a bag of old photos, generally from the 1980's.  All were saved because of art relativity. Do I need them?  I don't know, but they don't take up much room.   In a bag I found my large filter mask, which I had for mixing acid back in the days when I was the grad assistant in printmaking and it was job to do so.  I made use of this mask back in the early days of the pandemic, when it was the best mask I had and sometimes I was expected to have one on upon entering a supermarket.  Don't know how effective it was, but it sure looked scary, and that was good enough for those days.  Made use of it for my print on the subject, the last supermarket block I draw and cut, though I don't think I ever printed a copy, and I ended up in the hospital shortly after that.  (the mask and the block are shown above) I look forward to finding that block in my storage unit and printing it and seeing what I have there.