Boardwalk Rides part 3

 There's nothing more I can do about the Outlaw show until the gallery sends me something, so I guess it's now back to work on art.  I do like exhibiting, but making art is even better.

I have two pieces in progress right now, but decided to work on the boardwalk rides piece today.  Most of that is because I spent part of last night copying images from an episode of "Homicide: Life on the Street" that I had saved to DVR, but didn't want to keep.  I knew from having seen it before that the episode involved the kidnapping of a small child from a carousel, and I wanted to get more sketches of carousels, horses, and humans to scale before I wiped it out.  I brought those sketches with me today, as well as the various newspaper photos I had collected.

I pulled out this latest block for the first time in weeks.  I had started sketching the carousel already, but it was only partly complete, and what was there need work, so this had to get done.  I fixed a few horses and added some others.  I also did work on the carousel itself, based on a combination of the previous sketches, and the new ones from last night.  I also made some changes to the fence around it, some of what was already drawn, and I added some needed sections.  I may go back in and clean up a few things, but I think this area is mostly done.  No figures yet, but I think I will add those to the whole print when everything else is done.  Right now it's hard to tell where one horse ends and another begins, but I think color will help distinguish these when the time comes.  Where I left off today can be seen below:

Probably next time I move on to another part of the print, perhaps the ride in the lower left panel.  That depends on me sketching that first.

For music today I started with a favorite from the rock/pop book, a home burned collection of songs from three early albums from the Flat Duo Jets.  Those whole albums were on my disc shelf, and are now in storage, but this disc made it to the Studio, so I have it now.  Blogged about back in January of 2020 for those who want the details.  A lot of the early songs shut off, but after a while the disc was fine.  When that ended, I went with another rock/pop favorite, a copy of Kicking The Toybox by Twang Bang.  In this case both discs I have are copies, but one is in storage and one went to the Studio.  Details about this can be found in December of 2021.  Whole thing played with no problems.

Exhibition Update

 I have taken my part of the upcoming exhibition at Pyramid Atlantic as far as I can go right now.  My box is finished, except for the final sealing, and I can't do that yet.  All the prints to go to that show are now mounted, framed, and labeled with both my information and the names of each work.  Bubble wrap is all cut to size.  All frames are wired, but those were on already, as I am using previously used frames.  I submitted all the information about each piece to the gallery director, except images, which my computer won't allow me to do right now.  However, those new large file images have been posted to a blog, and a link to that page sent to the gallery director, so I have to hope that's enough.  That submission also includes an artist bio, so they have that now as well.

The main thing that remains for me is to calibrate all the wires to the same height relative to the frames (I created a tool for that) and seal up the box.   Then take it to a place to ship.  (we are under orders not to ship anything yet, probably until after we are sent a loan agreement)  After that it's in the hands of the shipping company, and then the gallery, for the duration of the show, which goes until mid-November I hear.  Right now I am well ahead of all the deadlines.  

So maybe tomorrow I get to go back to working on art.  I look forward to that.

The Day Has Come Around Again

 Today is September 11th, but more importantly, today is the 25th Anniversary of the original September 11, the day that the towers came down.  Not that anything different happened today.  We had the usual- all television (at least here in the New York City area; I can't speak for the rest of the country) pre-empted for the memorial service, pairs of people reading the names of all the victims (sometimes poorly) in alphabetical order, the ringing of a bell to mark the exact times that towers were hit or fell, interspersed with shots of memorials.  I watched for a while, then found something else to do.

One thing I heard recently is that a significant number of Americans weren't even born yet when the Twin Towers came down, maybe a third, if I remember correctly.  That makes sense I guess.  It has been 25 years since the original destruction, time for a lot of people to be born.  And no doubt there were some very young children alive in 2001 that didn't know about it.  After all, I was alive for several years of the Vietnam war, and didn't really know anything about it until refugees started arriving in my town.  However I was much older when September 11th happened, and I won't forget that.  

Part of that may be because I was actually in one of the towers, going up to the top level observation deck with relatives from out of town, and leaning against that window.  Part of it may be because there was nothing else on television for at least a week, and I had plenty of time to see all those images.  And part of it may be because I made art about it, as seen below:

I've posted this image before on the blog, but not in recent years.  When it first started, I didn't know anything about it- it started as just another Tuesday, and I had a vacation group home to get ready for another group.  Of course that group decided not to come.  Lots of time to record images to my VCR (no digital then- just magnetic tape) and prepare for the artwork that would follow.  Heard the first radio reports as I was driving around doing errands.  One plane hitting one tower didn't seem that strange, as the Empire State Building has been hit by planes before.  A second plane hitting the second tower was more significant.  Something was going on and I knew I better get home and put on a television.  

My art is about my day, some of which was normal, and much of which was not, and of the latter, this was all experienced through television.  (No family in the towers and lost no one that day.)  Some images were off the air the next day, but they were etched on my mind and would be part of my print.  Now it's just old news, and not a print I exhibit anymore.  

The Old Frame Shop is Open for Business

 My shipping box is pretty much done now (plastic sealing tape went on most places yesterday). so today I turned to the process of framing the work.   First step in that process was to get a piece of mat board from the supply I keep in the basement.  I have some in the Studio, but I don't know if there is enough there, so better to be safe than sorry and bring a piece with me.  Once I got up there, the next step was to take out the prints I expect to frame and put in the show and measure them.  The two already in frames are slightly different dimensions, so I thought it best to check these out and write down the measurements.  All were 11" x 14", two horizontal, and one vertical.  

I cleared off my table and got out my homemade mat cutting machine.  Essentially it's a double flat board with a mounting for a big metal straightedge, and a wooden strip that holds the mat in place, held down with a C-clamp at one end (also holds it all to the table) and a squeeze clamp at the other.  Windows to be removed are drawn onto the back of each piece in pencil, and a hand held bevel cutter slides along the straightedge to cut it.  It works every time and can handle any size I have ever tried to cut.  

As expected, I had one good piece of mat board in the Studio. and one that was a bit blemished, and no amount of eraser work could fix it.  I set that aside and got the one I had left in my car.  It had a Pearl sticker on it, and that chain went out of business a long time ago, so I have had this one in my supply for a while.  One little problem- the top side was not the same shade of bright white I had used for all the others.  However, the back side was, so I found a section that had nothing printed on it and used that.  Problem solved.  

I started by cutting out the full size (frame size) pieces, then marking the back sides with pencil lines for the size window I wanted to cut, then used my bevel cutter to make perfect windows.  A photo of this set up is shown below:

I brought the window mats and the prints home to be framed, along with my roll of linen tape.   I can do that step at on a table at home.  Then all I have to do is print out labels to put on the back, place them in my shipping box, seal it up, and take it to the place to ship out.  Before then, I need to contact the gallery and let them know all the information about everything, but I have all that now.

I always put on music while I work, and today it was a loose disc from my rock/pop book, a home burned collection of the music of Matthew Sweet.  (blogged about back in June of 2020 if you want to know more)  Sweet probably should have been a bigger star- a very good instrumentalist and vocalist- but I don't think he ever had the look of a rock star, and in the age of videos and talk show appearances, that probably matters.

One More Day in the Box

 Over the weekend I was thinking about my shipping box and what I would have to do to finish it.  I have spent so much time on it over the past few weeks that I have the whole thing firmly in my head.  So not surprisingly, I had a good idea what I planned to do upon arrival in the building this morning.  And what I planned is pretty much what I did.

I knew I had to add a top flap to my box, and imagined how I would make it and what I would make it from.  And I followed that plan.  As the glue dried (weighted down with my heaviest clamp), I was placing pieces of wet paper tape in every seam I could find.  When I finished, it all looked exactly like what I expected.  A photo of it is shown below:

Meanwhile, while the glue was drying, I had a quick photo session on my white tack wall.  In about a week and a half, all my information is due down at Pyramid Atlantic for this Outlaw show, so I have started on all that.  For example, last week I used my blog to find all the years of completion for the prints I am sending.  Over the weekend, I updated an artist statement to reflect this current show.  Today I was taking large images of most of the prints for this show.  (had one already)  I just set my camera to the largest file size (for the purposes of this blog I usually go with small format photos) and took photos of all the other prints up on my wall.  Back home I edited all of them and stuck them on my desktop.   A photo of this process is shown below:

I decided to bring the box home for the next step, which will be to put on the address labels, mark all the cut lines to open it, and to put on all the clear sealing tape.  All that can be done at home.  The box probably weighs as much as the art, if not more, but it's worth it.  It is very important that these works make it safely to their destination, and I expect they will.  This is a lesson I learned a long time ago from the movie, Joe Verses the Volcano, in which the protagonist decides to invest in four large handmade steamer trunks for his journey and they save his life on a number of occasions.  As the salesman told him, when traveling, all you have to depend on is your luggage.  And when shipping artwork, all you have to depend on is your box.

For music today I decided to honor Cassandra Wilson (who died this past week at age 70) by playing her album New Moon Daughter, a copy of which I have in my jazz/blues disc book.  The album is more jazz than blues (it was on Bluenote after all), but one song was clearly blues, which turned out to be a Son House song, and the internet tells me that an extended version (which I don't have) has a Robert Johnson song, "32-20 Blues."  I don't have her version on the song, but I did a print of it as part of my series, which can be seen below:

If you want to know more about the album, check the blog back in January of 2022.   When that disc ended I pulled another disc from my jazz/blues book, and another female singer, this time Ella Fitzgerald and excerpts from the collection, Oh, Lady Be Good!, standards done with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra, and blogged about back in August of 2021.

Still More Box Time

 This box isn't done yet, so today that was something to work on.  Got up there in late morning, found plenty of parking, took the elevator down to my space, cleared the table, and got to work.   I knew I had some big pieces of cardboard stashed behind my rack, so pulled one out.  No doubt this was stored back there for this purpose, but I don't know where it came from.  It had my name on one edge, along with a reference to a Thursday night class, and that's it.  Probably from my county college, but what purpose it had served there I had no idea.  All I knew was that it was a big flat sheet of cardboard with a few folds along the edges.  I laid it out flat on the table, and measured it at different angles to decide where and how to fold it and cut it, then scored it and proceeded with my task.

When I was finished, I had my outer box mostly done.  The top flap remains, but I have cardboard for that and will deal with it next time.  Meanwhile, I had my inner box now otherwise wrapped, with all the parts glued and taped down.  I might have done a little more, but my mother called and needed to be picked up where they had gotten a ride to this morning, which meant going home to grab a quick lunch, cleaning out a few crates from the back of my car (make room for my parents), and get up to place to pick them  up on time.  Below is a photo of today's work:

I noticed that I had an email from the gallery director down at Pyramid, which I was expecting.  Most of the information was the same as what the executive director sent me, but there were a few new requests for related information, which is what I was expecting.  Most important, now I have a contact for this show.  Eventually I will send her a reply email with a question or two.  

For music today I brought with me a home burned disc from my rock/pop Studio collection, the live Kinks album One For The Road, which I wrote in detail about back in January of 2023 if you want to know more.  Had to restart it a few times, but after that it played through for the rest of the time I was building my box.

More Box Time

 I suppose I had a choice between working on my shipping box or working on the new print (or both), but after thinking about it a bit, I decided the box was the way to go.  After all, before this month is out, I have to get some framed work down to Maryland.  And a shipping box takes time to do right.  As much as I would like to work more on a print, I have no deadline for getting one done, but I do have a deadline for this next show.  So box it is.

Got up to the building in the morning and found plenty of parking.  For the first time in a few weeks, I took the elevator down to my space.  (that cone was definitely gone) Cleared the table and got to work.  The goal for today was to finish the inner box.  Toward that end, I prepared styrofoam pieces and glued them in the planned places, added some scrap boards to the broad sides (protection), pieces of cardboard in other areas (the same), and lots of paper tape on the edges and seams of everything.  I cut loose some cardboard I don't need, leaving just one top flap for now.  I still may add one piece of styrofoam in the bigger box, but essentially the inner box is complete.  Below is a photo of what exists so far:

Next will be to wrap everything in the outer box, which will include some more flaps.  In my Studio already I have cardboard in mind for that process, but it waits for next time.  

For music today I felt like listening to the Kirsty MacColl album I have (possibly influenced by the old movie I saw on Saturday night, part of which has a plot similar to one of the songs) so I had brought with me her posthumous album tropical brainstorm, blogged about back in March of 2020 if you want to get the full story.  When that ended, I put on another home burned Studio copy disc, the self titled Marc Ribot  y Los Cubanos Postizos, written about back in July of 2020.  I guess what both albums have in common is a love of Caribbean music, the former covering the variety of music found from North to South America and everything in between, and the latter a tribute to a particular Cuban bandleader.