The Year That Was 2023

 

This past year didn't have me stay in a hospital, which was good, but there were a lot of doctors and medical procedures.  That is because I was diagnosed with cancer.  Compared to the brain tumor I had a few years ago, this was less of an existential threat and more of an inconvenience.  I can say that because it didn't become a worse problem and the treatment was relatively easy, and may be done for now.  It did take away my weekdays for about a month and a half, and so cut into my Studio time a bit, but it didn't affect my weekends, so I still participated in some weekend activities while I was getting my radiation treatments during the week.  And I still got some prints done before and after.

Prints- Not a lot of new stuff, but things continued, things started, and things taken to completion.   I continued work on the Robert Johnson prints- having sent my contact images of the early works, and done some reprints and new photos of all of these.  I finally printed a first proof of my most recent supermarket print, one about the sad state of supermarkets during the beginnings of the pandemic, almost like something out of dystopian science fiction.  I started two new blocks- having drawn and cut my take on the many blood draws I have gotten the past few years, and I started drawing a new Robert Johnson block at the most recent Open Studio event.  None of those are finished yet.  The only two prints that have been started and finished this year are the piece begun at the spring Open Studio (Achluophobia) and my holiday card for this year.

Shows- Between the long term effects of Covid, and my many medical concerns, very few shows this year.  The Robert Johnson show in Tennessee still hasn't happened yet, but I did put the three completed works into the Tenants Show in my studio building in Ocean Grove, so they at least got shown there.  And were appreciated from conversations I had and word that has gotten back to me.

Firsts- None really for me, but this was the first time I heard about the Art on the Porch event held in Ocean Grove, and despite being in the midst of cancer treatments, I visited the porch displays of everyone I knew, including some people who had been to my previous Open Studio. I handled the long walk well.

Teaching- No classes this past year, though I am still hoping to have more at JSAC.  The print related stuff that my former student Mary donated has arrived, so maybe that will lead to something. 

Studio- Still get there when I can, and make work as soon as I get ideas.  I have to hope Molly renews her lease, but last I spoke to her she still wants to be there.  We got new photo ID's this year, that are used to open the door.  I don't think it helps any, just adds another thing we have to bring to get into the building, while more of the keys I had are now useless.

Asbury Park Punk Rock Flea Market....and open studio

 

Today was the Asbury Park Punk Rock Flea Market, the second such event held at the Jersey Shore Arts Center.   This is not something organized by the building, but rather by an outside organizer.   As such we had little to do with it.  It was decided to also have an Open Studio event at the same time.  I knew about all this from an email.  As part of that we were offered the chance to take down our art from the Tenants Show if we wanted to.  However, when  I went in a few days later, I was specifically asked to keep my work up, as there is nothing else to go there now, and our director mentioned particularly liking my work, and thought it would be appreciated by the expected guests.  Any work I take home, I have to store, and it's true that there is some overlap between the woodcut and blues audience and the punk audience, so I decided to leave them on the wall.  

I got there around 10:00 am, about an hour before the event was scheduled to begin.  Some vendors were already setting up on the 1st floor, and I saw my three woodcuts up on the wall, behind tables set up with records.  It took me two trips to bring everything in,  as I wanted to saw a block first, before anyone arrived in my space.  I was told that there would be signs up to direct people to the basement, but I didn't see any.  Nor did I see little Bobby Duncan in his basement space, though last week he told me he expected to be.  Knowing his medical situation, I will forgive him that. I also moved a few of Molly's screens, to make the path to the sink door easier to walk.  And then I was ready.

I thought I'd make a quick trip upstairs to check out the flea market and take a few photos, but when I got up there and opened my camera case, I saw the camera was already turned on.  That's not good.  It automatically shuts down after a few minutes, so the battery should not have been in danger, but on the back screen was a message that the memory card was locked.  I didn't do that, and have never done that, so I didn't know how to unlock it.  I took the camera back to my space, played with every menu I could find, and couldn't figure out how to unlock the card.  So no photos today.  

I had no idea if anyone would make it to the basement, but I wasn't worried because I had work to do.  I started with my blood draw block, which I stopped working on to work on my holiday card, so I started with that.  Not much left- just some lines to male gray tones in some broad areas, and also a few lines to separate some black shapes from each other.  It didn't take long, and wouldn't have been worth taking a photo of anyway.  Next time it's seen here, it  will be inked up.

Next up was the block I sawed today, cutting a spare piece of birch I had in half.  This was for a new Robert Johnson block.  I still haven't heard anything new about the project.  I wonder if it's because one of the big names attached to the project has been spending a lot of time out of the country lately, but I don't want to speculate here.  The three lyric inspired prints I have completed are currently on the wall upstairs, and I don't know about doing more until I hear something, but I do have ideas for three more, and decided to start the one I can do without help from anyone else.  The pieces I did seemed to be well liked, so starting another one seemed not a bad idea.  As with others I have done, I'll save an image of the piece until I complete the drawing.  Meanwhile, I finished sketching the main idea, and I have a plan for the background, but my source for that was at home, so no point in starting that.

As for visitors, I only had three, in my first 4 hours of open studio, a family group (father and two kids), one of whom had last been in the building as a student.  I gave him an update on how things had changed, answered questions, etc.  He said he had seen no signs upstairs mentioning anything about anyone in the basement.  But I had my doors open, and played appropriate music from various punk bands I have in my available library, such as X, The Wipers, Gun Club, and The Brood. all of which can be found somewhere on this blog.  With no one else showing  up, I gave up and prepared to go home.  On my way out, I passed through the flea market main floor, and looked briefly at what was for sale. Not surprisingly, a lot of music, but most on vinyl, which I can't play right now.  So I picked up no new music to listen to.  To my surprise, one of vendors had in his display a vinyl LP of Hate to See You Go by Little Walter, a great blues album, but I can't listen to vinyl right now, and I have a copy on disc in storage right now.

Just outside the building I ran into my former student Nellie, who came to my Open Studio back in the winter or spring, and thought I might be there.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised she was there, as the first print she did after my class was a portrait of GG Allin.  I followed her inside.  She's interested in learning more woodcut, but the class isn't being offered these days, the building's idea, not mine.  Says she's been taking classes in figure drawing, concentrating on head and figure.  To me, there is no better way to learn drawing, so I encouraged her to continue.  And then I finally left.

Back home, my first order of business was to find the directions book for my camera and figure out how to unlock my memory card.  It mentioned a sliding tab on the card itself, which seemed to have nothing to do with the camera being accidentally turned on.   (maybe it happened when I was moving the card from my laptop to the case, after the last time I downloaded photos)  It never occurred to me to look there, but now I know to do that.  Seemed to solve the problem, and to make sure I took this photo of today's paper.

So next time I go to the Studio, I may have something to share with you.

Merry Christmas from Studio Arrabbiata

 

Merry Christmas from Studio Arrabbiata.  This year's card was done with the help of my studio assistant Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, who provided some much needed inspiration, though I handled all the cutting, printing, and coloring chores.  Several have been distributed, a few more will go out in the near future, and then that will be all for this design.

If you want to see some blocks and prints in person, I expect to be in my space in the basement, opening my Studio for as long as I decide to stay at the Asbury Park Punk Rock Flea Market on Saturday, December 30th.  I have no idea what will be going on with that, but it sounds fun.  Hope I can make it upstairs to check it out.  

Christmas Card 2023 part 7

 Had some things to take care of up at the Studio today.  Got an email yesterday saying that the Asbury Part Punk Rock Flea Market was returning to the JSAC on the 30th of December, which I already knew, but what was new is the Jeanne was suggesting maybe we want to take down our work from the first floor before it arrived, plus they were thinking of doing an open studio that day to take advantage of the crowds in the building.  Plus, I had one more session of coloring I wanted to do on my cards, and it's quite an effort to prepare my dining room table for that.  Much easier to just use the table in the Studio. 

The only problem was that today was a freezing cold day.  Not so much a problem once I was there, but getting from place to place was an effort.  She wasn't in the office when I first got there, so I started with coloring.  

Had about 6 colors remaining to complete the cards, so I did those.  Some were right out of the tube, some had to be mixed, but I had completed a few sample cards, so I had something to see as I worked.  With that done, I went to the office.  Jeanne explained that she wanted to leave work up, particularly mine, which she liked and thought would be popular with the expected crowd.  So I decided to leave my work up.  Gives me some more promotion, especially if they are doing an open studio, plus I don't have to store the work at home for a little longer.  

With all that settled, I decided to go home and eat lunch, maybe warm up a little. 

Christmas Card 2023 part 6

 Very cold, but sunny, so a good day to get up to the Studio.  Stopped by the office to let them know there was a large package on the front steps if they wanted it.  Then I got to work.  I had brought in with me my printmaking go bag, normally kept in my car, but now we are in the cold part of the year.  So I also brought my new cans of ink with me.

Before doing anything else, I put on some music.  I had brought in my jazz/blues collection, and from this selected my burned copy of Devil's Slide by Bob Brozman, a favorite going back to my days in Virginia, and written about on this blog back in February of 2020.  Cleared off my table, got the pre-cut card stock out of drawer of my printing table, and got stuff out of my print bag.  As expected, the old ink cans were pretty much dried out, not to mention cold, so I used my new ink.  The can of Portland Intense Black opened very easily, and the ink came off the surface nicely with one of my ink knives.  Used some blue painter's tape to mask out areas I didn't want to ink on my card block.

I was making good progress when Molly showed up.   (she has an event this weekend, and was making product for that) She liked the music, comparing it to Django Reinhardt, which is an apt comparison, as Brozman played a lot of the music of the early 20th century, when Reinhardt was active.    She got to work on her project, and I continued mine.  

I had prepared 12 pieces of card stock, which is more cards than I need right away, but would allow for a few mistakes along the way.   Which is good, as on two of them, the paper shifted while printing, making them unprintable.  (a problem occasionally with hard, slicker watercolor paper) and a few I just thought weren't satisfactory.   I will use those for practice of color, and still have plenty to go out in the first batch.

My disc ended as I was cleaning up my ink.  Molly was still working, so rather than put on another one, I left it to her to decide what she wanted to listen to.  I brought home all the cards to dry there, and to begin the coloring when they are ready.  At least I can listen to Christmas music on my computer while I do that.

Christmas Card 2023 part 5

 A chilly day today, but I have a car, and drove up to my Studio to get a bit of work done and to store some  materials.  A few days ago I received a large box of sheets of paper, and it had been sitting in the living room ever since.  No need for it to stay there, so after taking care of some other business, I took it with me up to Ocean Grove and carried it to my space, along with a few other things I would need today.

After clearing a space on my table, I unpacked the box and brought out the package that included the hot press watercolor paper.  (hot press means smooth, as opposed to cold press, which has texture)  The sheets are large, and after doing some measuring, I figured I could get 12 card sized pieces from one sheet of the paper.  One thing I had brought in was my metal straight edge ruler, which I knew would make a good tear bar for the purpose of preparing the card papers.  I decided on a 7.5 inch square size, which is standard for these things.  

So I did all that.  One advantage of buying paper from a website and not a store is that the papers don't come with price tags/ID tags on them, so all pieces can be used to make cards.  My knowledge and experience with paper meant that I had chosen appropriate materials from the website. Although the pieces I tore down are square, there is still a proper orientation for them on the block.  Paper, like the wood it is often made from, has a grain, and that means it easily folds one way and not the other way.  (I don't know if this is because of the plant fibers used to make it, or the process by which it's made.) The cards will fold, so I have to print them the correct way to make that happen.  I put my small pieces of paper in a drawer for now, added other assorted sheets in plastic that have been on top of my table for months to those I put back in my large box, and tucked that behind some other stuff of mine, out of the way.  I can't do anything else until the ink arrives.   So I went home, bringing less stuff than I came with.

Christmas Card 2023 part 4

 Over the weekend I did a few things. One was that I ordered ink and paper from various online sources.  In the old days I used to order them from the same place, but that business, like so many other places that sold art supplies, is gone now.  I also finished the block drawing for my card, both on my block, and on paper.  I find that my mirror in the Studio is better than what I have at home, so sometimes it's easier to draw it as it looks on paper, and then look at it in a mirror there. Next step was to cut the thing, and that's best done in the Studio. Took care of that today, bringing all my tools and the block and my paper drawing to the Studio. Redrew the face on what will be Santa on paper at home, copied from a computer as I don't have the books anymore, then used the hand held mirror I had in the Studio to improve it.  Then I began the cutting.  

Ideally I'd have some Christmas music to listen to as I did this, but like all my books, the discs I had are all in storage and not currently accessible.  So I went with something related, a disc my friend Doug sent me a few years ago, something from a series called Mod Jazz.  I wrote about this on this blog back in December of 2021 if you want to know more.  What I had remembered was that he sent it to me around Christmas, so while none of the songs on this compilation album were Christmas themed. I do associate it with the holidays.  The length did correspond with the time it took me to cut the block, so it all worked out.

Since I do keep the image a secret until December 25th, I can't show the work I did on the block today, but I can show you the wood shavings that came off it.  But the card is small, so I was able to get the cutting all done in one session.  

And as a bonus, I got a big package on the porch today, the paper I ordered. Wasn't expecting it until the end of the week.  Mailed flat in a custom made cardboard box, which I will serve as a way to carry and store the paper.  I opened it to to make sure I had been sent what I had ordered, and I had, so now I just have wait for the ink to see what I have.  At least I should have something to post here in a few weeks, and maybe I'll get some out before the holidays.