Open Studio 2025

 Got a call from Molly a few days ago, telling me she had done a little cleaning of our space and set up a display on one of the yellow tables, but she didn't think she could come in for the Open Studio on Saturday.  No problem I said, because the Open Studio is actually on Sunday, which is what all the postcards said, as did everyone else. On that day she would be a maybe

So today I got up there around an hour before the opening, to get my space all ready and see what Molly did.  I saw her display, but not much cleaning, but the place wasn't that bad last time I was there.  I did move around a few of my things, and put the colored proof of my latest boardwalk print on the big tack board behind my table, and framed Robert Johnson prints leaning against the shelving unit there.  There was room on my small tack board, but not knowing if Molly was coming in and planning to use it, I decided not to put any prints there.  I did clear a small piece of her small table to put out my cookies and postcards (similar to what I had last year), and cleared off my table so I would have room to work, and put our my recent boardwalk block in case anyone wanted to see how that worked.  Then I opened up my Studio doors and got ready to receive visitors.

I didn't know how many I would get, but I had high hopes.  For one thing, this time the programs they had on a table near the front door listed the basement artists, including my space. (Molly too, even though we weren't sure if she would show up).  Inside the elevator, there were signs listing all the studios, including mine.  And while there were no big signs upstairs, there were some in the basement, as long as people made it down there in the first place.  

No rain while I was awake today, but the weather was overcast in general.  That meant I could safely move art and materials into the building, but I had no idea how turnout would be.  No problem for visitors in cars, but not really walking around weather, and Ocean Grove likes such things.  We would see.

Once the event began, I never left my space in the basement, so I have no real idea how many people came.  Jeanne stopped by in the three o'clock hour and said that attendance was a little lighter than usual, but I had people stop by, so I was planning to stick around a while.  And a block to work on.  At these events I use tally marks to keep track of visitors to the space, and people were coming.  The most frequent comment was on the quality of light in there, but that may be in comparison to the dark hallways of the basement.  As far as artwork, interest was probably evenly divided between my work and Molly's.  

A lot of people seemed surprised that anyone is still doing woodcuts.  Not a surprise for me, because I still do them, and I know a lot of other people who are also doing them.  I would not be surprised if I made a few converts today.  And in between visitors, I had a new block to work on, but I'll save details of that for a post of its own.  In the end, I decided to leave around 4:30 pm, partly because Jeanne had said earlier that she thought things were winding down.  Don't know about that, but at the time I left I had 48 visitors make there way into my Studio, and a few that I saw at the doors but didn't come in, so as good a crowd as any I have ever had. I took the block home with me to work on over the next few days (maybe fix drawing stuff a little) and otherwise put everything back where I found it.