Boardwalk Days part 38

 Yesterday I took a little trip down to Brick, with two goals.  One was to pay a medical bill, which I did.  The second was to buy paper suitable for this year's Christmas card.  Only October now, but the day comes up on you faster than you expect.  There used to be many places where one could find the right kind of paper, but most of those either don't carry it anymore, or have closed down.  I decided to try the arts and crafts store where I had gotten framing supplies, figuring they would stock the full size sheets I typically use for this.  But they didn't.  Very little full size paper there.  I settled for the largest size pad of Bristol Board they had, which would suffice for a card stock type of paper.  However, I do wonder if I will ever try to get paper there again.  

Today I did something I was more certain of- go to my Studio.  Had a plan- ink up the recently cut boardwalk block, to see what I had.  If I like how it's cut, I will prepare to print the first proof.  If I don't like what I see, I can cut more off the block after the ink dries.  No plan to take a proof yet.  But while my hands were still clean, I decided to check my paper supply, all those big boxes I keep in my space.  I verified that I had some heavy weight paper that would work for my eventual color experiments, and several sheets of the Japanese paper I use for the editioned prints in this boardwalk series.  

For music I brought some discs from home.  A few days ago was the "birthday" of the radio station I grew up with- WNEW-FM 102.7 fm. (they started broadcasting on October 27th of 1967- get it?)  By tradition they would hold a birthday party that day, which for a while was a big concert broadcast over the radio on their station.  Back in 1990, it was blues guitarist and singer Robert Cray, who at the time was promoting his "Midnight Stroll" album, so much of this show was songs from that album.  I taped that broadcast, and put it on a cd when I had the ability to transfer tapes to disc, and eventually made a copy to keep in the Studio.  Which is how I have a copy available right now.  The radio station has been gone for more than two decades, but the tape and discs I made sound as good as ever.  And since I was not in the Studio on the 27th, I played it today.  I wrote about it a few times, but the best description is back in July of 2019.

Then I put out some fresh ink and rolled up the new block.  I did not put as much ink on it as I would if I were printing it, but enough to make sure everything was covered with a layer of black.  In general, I like the results.  Upon initial inspection, I did see a few open areas that picked up some unexpected ink, so I will cut those away after it's dry, and if need be, will tape them again when it's time to print. There are also a few spots where fine horizontal lines fragmented, but those I can fix on the prints themselves.   Results can be seen below:

My original plan was to do a blotter proof on scrap paper when it was done, but then I decided to go ahead and take a proof on heavy paper instead, since I would need something for testing colors anyway.  And from my earlier  paper inspection, I knew I had some suitable large paper in my supply.  Didn't even cut it down, just threw down the whole sheet on top of the inked block.  As I said, not fully inked, so the proof I took was not up to the quality of a finished print, and because of the size and heaviness of the sheet, it seems to have shifted a little on the block, another problem with it.  However, it should be good enough to test out some potential colors when I reach that phase.  For now I put the inked block in my rack, and the test proof in the back of my car- the only place I have large enough to hold the inky print.

When the Robert Cray disc ended, I put on another copied disc, this one being "Kicking the Toybox" by Twang Bang.  Hard to describe, but I got it originally from my former student Tom Huck on one of his New Jersey visits, again with a copy made for my Studio, and the original on my shelf at home.  Tom is the organizer of the Robert Johnson show I've been making prints for the past few years, and I would have already written him about the recent show of new prints except I know from a mass email that he has a big show in Chicago this weekend, and I wouldn't want my mail to get lost in the shuffle.  If you want to know more about this unusual album, I wrote about it back in December of 2021.