Open Studio Day

 The Open Studio event was scheduled for noon to 5 pm.  I decided to leave around 10:30 am, get there around 11:00 am, or about an hour before.  This would allow me time to move things inside (weather permitting) and get the room straightened out, before the people started arriving.  Weather was cloudy, but no rain, so I moved a few large framed pieces up from the basement and loaded them in my car.  I left as planned, got up to Ocean Grove a little before 11.  So far, so good.

The rain was still holding off, so I moved the framed prints and recently colored saints into the building.  A few other people were around, but I wouldn't say crowded.  It took me three trips to get everything to my space, but no rain fell, so I was happy.  Got the space straightened up, including a quick sweep of my area.  My plan was to walk across the street, leaving around 11:30, and grab a slice of pizza for lunch.  Left a few minutes late, but I figured I was still ok on time.  However, I saw no pizzas at the counters and the place was still locked up.  Not open for lunch at 11:40 am?  Well, no pizza for me.  I walked back to the JSAC.  My room was all set.

I was ready for the noon start.  No one there yet, but I had a block to work on, so I didn't mind.  Eventually I had my first visitors.  Over the course of the five hour event, I had somewhere between 35 and 40 people wander through, a fairly good number.  There were two people who I had invited, and one other person I knew.  Some had some printmaking knowledge and experience, and some knew nothing about it.  Some visitors mentioned having seen the prints upstairs in the show.  A few asked about getting studios of their own, but I have nothing to do with that.  Many admired the large space we have, and it is larger than some people have, but smaller than some have.  A few asked about me teaching classes, and I told them it wasn't up to me.  A few were there specifically to see Molly; they were disappointed.   

One thing I was asked a few times (and I don't remember this question at previous Open Studios) was how I got started in woodcut.  That's a fair question; it's not a common medium.  I gave them them a short but true version:  I saw some woodcuts in a book, decided that I liked them and that I could do it, tried one, then another, liked them, then spoke to the print professor at Montclair State (which I was attending at the time) and asked him if I took his class, could I do woodcuts?  He told me if I took his class I could do anything I wanted.  The rest is history.  Now the longer version for the record.   For a class at Montclair I was required to do a book report, I selected a book of German Expressionism (a style my paintings had been compared to), saw all the woodcuts, decided I could probably do that, and tried it.  I didn't have any cutting tools yet, so I used a carpet knife, a drypoint needle (from my etching class) and a screwdriver, plus a scrap of pine plank.  I did one, then another, then spoke to the print professor.  I took his class, then he eventually hooked me up with the program in Carbondale, I went out there and learned some more, then came back to New Jersey.  Thirty years later, I'm at where I am now.

As a result of all the visitors and the many questions I got, not much time to work on any new cutting (people did admire the works I had on display- see the photos above- often remarking how much patience I must have to create such large works), but I did complete the most complex area of the block, the chain link fence in the deep background, the clips that join it to the roof, and a little background around the band.  What I did can be seen below:

I didn't get to see any of the show, so I don't know how it went, other than visitors to my Studio mentioning that they had seen it.  Perhaps I'll ask about it next time I am there.  I left the colored saints there (the collectors never showed), loaded everything else in my car, and drove home.

Bd. Peter Geremia part 1

 Working from home today, waiting for various tradespeople to arrive.  They are not here yet, so coloring and blogging has gone on.

For Bd. Peter Geremia I had no print to copy.  This is one of my Carbondale prints, all of which are likely in storage.  Why the block ended up in my Studio I don't know, but there it was, and I may have a sale because of it.  I pulled a proof last week, taped it down earlier this week, and today I colored it.  In this case I was working purely from memory, a print I made over 30 years ago.  I can't say for sure if these colors match the original print from the edition I showed in Carbondale, so I am going to have to create a new edition for this one, and I'm calling this proof #1/5.  I wasn't even sure what kind of fish these are.  Back when I took Vertebrate Biology (a 300 level course) in college, we had to identify a few dozen dead fish laying in lab pans by genus and species, and I might have been able to do it then.  However, that was back in the 80's, a very long time ago.  My best guess was that these are supposed to be trout, and that was mostly decided because I like to eat trout, so maybe that is what I drew and cut back then.  Trout are more typically caught on a line, but many are grown on fish farms for stocking fishing grounds, so it's possible they saw a net at some point.  The fish were colored accordingly.

The Butler's book doesn't claim that Peter Geremia didn't exist, though you can decide whether or not you believe the story.  His bio says that Peter heard that a large fishing boat had a particularly good catch, so he took his little boat out to the fishing boat to beg for some fish for the poor.  The fishing captain said no.  So Peter left, said a prayer, and the nets started opening up, and the captured fish escaping.  The captain quickly sought Peter's help and promised him some fish.  Peter said another prayer, the nets closed up, and the remaining fish stayed caught.  Again my image is fairly literal- a broken net and some fish shown getting away.  I remembered the color of the surrounding water being more green than blue, and fairly dark, so most of my sea water is that way.  Results can be seen below:

So now I have both prints colored.  I'll bring them with me on Sunday in case the potential buyers show up.  Even if they don't want to take delivery that day, they can at least see what they ordered.  By the way, the Bd designation stands for beatified or blessed, which means the individual is considered holy, but is still one attributed miracle away from full canonization as a saint.  The Butler's books include both Bd's and full saints, so I included them in my print series.

St. Romulus part 1

This print goes way back, to before I had this blog, which means before I had this Studio.  That is why the post about it is the first.  I don't really know when I first made it, only that it is a post-Carbondale saint, so one of the saint prints I did after moving back to New Jersey.  I don't know how or why, but this block was not with the blocks from my Carbondale saints, most of which were destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.  It did end up with the saints in my current Studio, and as such was one of the blocks viewed by my potential patron and chosen as something to be printed.  That process has been covered on this blog in recent weeks.

When it came time to color it, I wasn't sure what to do.  All of my finished saints are probably in storage, and I don't have access to them at this time.  Being one of my post-Carbondale prints, I sent it to Iowa for a show I had back almost 20 years ago.  I knew I had a photo of the group of saints from that show:

If nothing else, I knew I could look at this photo and see a small version of the print as framed for that show.  However, I had another idea.  As far as I knew, those boxes of saints were still downstairs in the basement, on the rack I created for holding all my framed prints.  If St Romulus was in one of those boxes, I would have a good framed copy to work from.  So a few days ago I went downstairs.  I found one box of saints on the middle shelf, and opened it up.  Good news- the packing slip on one of the inner lids included St Romulus. Bad news- St Romulus was not in that box.  A few framed saints were missing.  And I had no idea where they were.  I put the box back and found the other saint box on another shelf.  I opened that one up and the packing slip mentioned several other saints, but not that one.  I went through the box anyway and there it was.  I don't know why it was in the other box, but there it was.  I now had one to work from.

My source for this whole series has been Butler's Lives of the Saints, a four volume set that has been updated a few times and is in libraries across the country.  It was on open shelves in Carbondale, so I checked it out one volume at a time, reading and taking notes, without any particular plan.  Eventually it became my series  Everyman.  Wall Public Library has it on the reference shelves, and when I have needed to see it again, and with my personal copy in storage, that is where I go.  

The book casts doubt on the very existence of St. Romulus for two reasons.  One is that he is supposed to be a 1st century individual, but no writing about him exists before the 10th century, which may mean that he wasn't invented until then.  The second reason is that the St Romulus story is a lot like the legends of Romulus, the supposed co-founder of the city of Rome.  However, he is recognized by the church, and he does appear in the book, so he is eligible for this series.

The story is that St. Romulus was born to the daughter of a high ranking Roman official, but was fathered by a household slave, and this was not something that could be made public.  So the daughter abandoned the baby in a forest.  A female wolf adopted and raised the young child.  As the kid grew older, some townspeople learned about him and hatched a plan.  They would throw the body of a sheep toward the wolf to distract it, and grab the boy.  It worked.  The rescued boy was asked if he considered himself a boy or a wolf, somehow he indicated a boy, and was raised from then on as a human.  Eventually he became a saint.   My image is fairly literal, the body of sheep at the foot of a wolf in some woods.  Whether or not you believe the story is up to you.

Anyway, the plan for today was to use the framed copy of St Romulus I found the other day and color a new copy of the print, which I pulled last week and taped down a few days ago.  I had my bag of watercolors in the car, so I just had to bring that into the Studio building.  Having a completed one to work from, I was able to mix approximate colors to match the one in the frame and colored the taped down copy- first the wolf and sheep, then the trees, then the forest floor, and finally the deep background.  Results can be seen below:

I decided to take home the whole board and paints, in case I decide to work on the other print over the next few days.  I don't know if the collector will be coming to the Open Studio or not, but she has in the past and this would get me ready.

For music .I went back to my storage box and the alphabetical discs and pulled out a double album, At   Fillmore East by the Allman Brothers Band.  The two disc set only has 7 songs, but some of them last quite a while.  For example, "Whipping Post" goes for over 20 minutes.  I would not be surprised if there is a longer extended version of this album now available, but I bought this many years ago.  However, the mix of blues and rock made fine music to work to.

Boardwalk Bar part 10

 I had a list of things to do today at the Studio, so I walked in with a plan.  However, one change I wasn't expecting was to see Jeanne up on a ladder hanging work.  I said hello, walked toward the elevator, then doubled back.  I mentioned to her that Molly had said (via email) she had been in touch with her regarding this new show.  She agreed that she had been in touch with Molly regarding the show, and Molly had said something about having work to contribute, though Jeanne had yet to see anything.  I figured that was between Jeanne and Molly and went on to my basement space.

The first thing I did (from my list) was to photograph the front and back sides of the new postcard, stuck up with blue tape loops to my tack wall.  However, I'll save that for another post.

The second thing I did was tape the two new saints down to a drawing board in preparation for coloring them.  For each printed saint I trimmed the paper a little on all four sides so that the two would fit on the board properly, but still left plenty of margin of white paper around the images.  What it looks like can be seen below:

The third thing on my list was to do some more cutting of the current block.  I continued my process of cutting out the ceiling, around various objects on and in front of the cloth ceiling.  Not a whole lot done today, but what I did was fine.  Results of today's cutting can be seen below:

I also emptied the trashcan in the Studio, in preparation for the big event.  Not that I expect visitors to the Studio to lift the lid and look inside the can, but if someone has reason to, they won't see all the garbage generated by Molly and me over the past few months.

For music today I remembered to make sure I had the right disc with me, some vinyl albums of Lightnin' Hopkins that I burned onto a single disc back when I could.  These were two records I had and listened to occasionally, as well as played on the air, so certainly worth putting on a disc.  First was a studio album called Lightnin' Strikes, from 1965.  Nine acoustic songs, various tempos.  The disc had plenty more room, so I added a short live album, Live at the Bird Lounge, from 1964, six songs, also acoustic.  (he also dabbled in electric guitar as well, but these aren't it)  The two records made nice background music for me to work to.

Open Studio 2026

 We are having another Open Studio event coming up this weekend.  What I know about it is on the card, which can be seen below, front and back:

The tenant art show (here called the Resident Art Show) is currently up and includes three new works from me, the last three of my Robert Johnson prints.  The three prints do go together, being the same size and black and white.  For the purposes of this show, the two vertical pieces are shown without the text/song lyrics.  The arrangement of the prints is the building's decision, but it's the way I would have done it myself:

There is no other opening, so the only reception is whatever happens during the Open Studio.  How long the show stays up has not been told to me yet, and I don't know if even the building knows yet.  I won't be able to attend the reception, as I will be in my space downstairs, so my work will have to represent itself.  At least it can do that- my work can hold a wall, so to speak,  And I will mention the hanging works to anyone who comes through my space.   

The Open Studio is on Sunday, April 19th from noon to 5 pm.  During that time I will have work on display on the 1st floor, and be working in my space in the basement.  Admission is free and the building is open to the public.  At least 13 of the spaces will be open with artists likely in them, showing process and art.  I would not be surprised if other spaces are also open for the day, if not listed on the card.  The show remains up for an undetermined amount of time.

Boardwalk Bar part 9

 For the moment there is nothing to do with immediate deadlines, so it's finally back to work on my current block.  I got up there in the late morning, and saw a few more artworks up on the wall.  Not all of them yet, but it's getting there.  I went to my space.  Checked at the office, but no one was there.  Then to work

My plan for today was to continue on the bar ceiling, which is based on the ceiling at the Headliner, and from the photos, it looks like a stretched fabric.  Still outlining big shapes, so I will eventually have to go in and hollow them out, but that can wait until I look at the photos again and see what is actually there, not just the lines I drew.  Cutting went faster than I expected, so I finished the top layer of ceiling and started on the next level.  Better not cut too much; I have to leave some stuff for the 19th, as I will be there for several hours.  Results of today's work can be seen below:

More old favorites out of the storage box today.  My original plan was to listen to my home recorded disc of Lightnin' Hopkins, but it turned out I brought the wrong home burned disc with me.  So I went with my next option, a disc sent by my friend Doug, back in 2011.  It had two albums on it.  It started with El Camino by the Black Keys.  I've heard plenty by this band and generally liked it, and this album was no exception.  I already knew two of the songs from radio, and the rest was enjoyable.  That ended and I got the next album, Scandalous by Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears.  Not a bad album, but nothing special either.  I expect to listen to the first half a lot more.  Still, it was all good music to work to.

On the way out I stopped again at the office, and this time Jeanne was in.  What I wanted to know (asked by Molly in an email to me) was if there was going to be an opening for the new show.  Jeanne gave me the new postcard.  Looks a lot like the old postcard, except on the front is something about the Resident Art Show opening.  It's at the same time as the Open Studio, so I guess I will miss it.  The back of the new card lists all the places with studios, and which will be participating in the Open Studio. Only about half of the studios will be open to the public.  At least as of now.  I would not be surprised if some of the others showed up that day and opened their spaces up, just maybe didn't let Jeanne know before the deadline last week.  She gave me a stack of the new cards (arrived today she said) to hand out to interested parties. I went on my way to the next stop.

The 2026 Tournament of Art part 4

 I'm finally getting to this today.

On one side of the Final Four bracket I had a Big East team and one of my art schools, so it was a win/win kind of situation.  I didn't care much about the other side- two #1 seeds that I had thought would have lost by this point, so I had no picked teams left on the bracket I had filled out.  

In the first game, U Conn defeated Illinois in what had been a relatively close game, and Michigan defeated Arizona in the second game.  Never saw the final score, but early on they were crushing them.  So now I was completely out and U Conn was facing Michigan for the championship.  Michigan won what was a fairly close game to win the annual championship, but I have no art connections to either school, so I had no reason to care either way.

And that is the end of this year's tournament of art.  I don't think one of my schools has ever taken the whole thing, but I watch every year.   Even if I don't have a school involved, it is still as exciting a sport as you will find on television.

More Studio Work

At first I figured I would continue work on my current block today, but then I got a package yesterday.  I had ordered some supplies last week, and the first package arrived- inks.  And while I am expecting a large supply of paper as well (it hasn't arrived yet), I do have a few sheets still available in the supply I did have, so I decided to do the first stage of my saint print sale project, and print the blocks.  In this case the potential patron picked out what she wanted last year, so it is just a matter of making them.  First step was to tear a sheet of paper in half, to give me two sheets the right size for saints.  Second was to remove the old tape from the blocks, which was regular masking tape.  Third was to print them, first St Romulus, then Bd Peter Geremia  That done, I cleaned up my palette and printing tools, then put everything back to where it belonged.  The two proofs went in my rack for now to dry, and I after blotting the blocks, I found places for them as well.  I'll make sure the proofs are dry before I tape then down to a drawing board for coloring.  Results can be seen below:

On the way out of the building I stopped to take a photo of my framed works on display for the next Tenants show.  My work seems to be installed in the place where it has been recently, on the short wall next to the theater.  That's good and bad- it puts me away from the larger walls (where more art will be), but close to the theater door and where the food would likely be.  A photo of it can be seen below:

Only a few artworks are up so far, but it seems notes were left saying what is expected on each wall.  There is a section near me that is reserved for Molly.   I'm glad to find out she is participating in the show at least.  No idea if she is coming to the Open Studio.  She has never been to one that I remember.

For music today I went back to the storage box and selected two discs by bands I know and like, although in these cases I have not listened often to these albums, which I guess is why they are in the loose pile and not with the alphabetized ones of the regular shelf.  I started with an album from the White Stripes, called Get Behind Me Satan.  (I am aware of the Latin translation and its significance in my religion, but right now that's neither here nor there)  I'm not really sure where this came from.  It's my writing on the disc and the list of songs on the cover.  I must have burned this copy myself, but I have no idea where I got the original from.  One song I know well (must have been the single and got a lot of airplay), but that's it.  Nothing really stands out otherwise, which may be why I haven't played it much.  When that disc ended I put on one that Dave sent me, Under the Big Black Sun from the band X.  The opening song "The Hungry Wolf" I know well; there was a video for it back on the early days of MTV, in the days where having any video got you on MTV.  Plus I have a live version of the song on my live X disc.  In fact, several songs from this album also appear on that live album, so some of the songs were very familiar. This album also seems to have come with bonus tracks, although what is listed here is not completely accurate.  Dave filled up the disc with some Cajun stuff, but I didn't have a chance to listen to it this time.  However, I have a feeling I will be listening to this disc some more.  

Studio Work

 

Today I took a break from woodcutting to take care of something else- framing.  I know that the next Tenant show starts going up next week, and the Open Studio event is two weeks from Sunday, which meant that I had to deal with this sooner or later.  Last week I finished making new labels for the backs of the frames (making changes to a label format document from the last show) and a few days ago I sent Jeanne the information about works I intended to show.  Since I couldn't include images in the email, I just posted everything to an old blog post I wasn't using and sent her the link.  I guess she didn't see it, as she mentioned photographing my new works for the show.

I saw her car in the parking lot, so the first thing I did was take the three new prints for the show to the office and allow her to photograph them before I put them behind plexiglass.  She did so, using her phone.  (my phone is a phone, my camera is a camera, and that's how I like it)  I brought the prints back to my Studio and got to work.  

On top of my table were the three framed prints from the last show, and I have been moving them off the table every day that I worked there, and then putting them back upon leaving.  Today I took them off the table for good.  One at a time, I took apart each frame, removed the old print, taped down the new print, signed it, put everything back together, and put the new label on the back.  Took care of all three framed prints that way, inserting the new prints into the old mats and frames.  Results can be seen in the above photo, taken with a camera.

The next step was to go back to Jeanne and see if she is willing to hang my prints, or at least find someone to do it, and she said yes.  Then the last thing was to see when she wanted them delivered.  I offered to hold them until next week, but she insisted on receiving them today, so I went back to my Studio, got the new framed prints, and brought them to the office.  Those framed prints will be out of my Studio for a while, and will eventually go up on the wall on the 1st floor.  Meanwhile, I put stuff back on top of my table before leaving, but not those prints.  

For music I had something bluesy, an album called Blue on Blues featuring half songs from Charley Patton, and half songs from Blind Lemon Jefferson, two ancient bluesmen from the era when everything was acoustic.  Still not sure why this was mixed in with my loose discs and not on the blues shelf, but it was, which means I have access to it today in my storage box. I had also planned to play a label produced cassette blues related, but the little pad that presses the tape to the tape head had come loose, which seems to be a common problem for these label produced cassette tapes that date back to the 80's, when I was buying such things.  I think I managed to glue it back into place, but I'll listen to another time and find out.

Boardwalk Bar part 8

 Today's plan was simple.  Widen the two vertical sides of the border on the outsides, then cut as much of the image area as I could by the time I decided to head home.  Mission accomplished.  

I started with the outsides.  The image is closer to one side than the other, so on that side I cut the margin to the edge of the block.  On the other side I cut about a half inch more than it was.   Now on both sides I have a healthy margin around the border, and the top and bottom already had it.  There was a little more time left in the session, so I started on the broad areas of the ceiling, on the left side of the block.  None of this is finished yet- I just cut big shapes for now, silhouetting them.  Eventually I will hollow out everything I cut today, but not yet.  (the shapes I cut today and the shapes I left behind will both be color in the final version)  The photo below doesn't really show the margins, so you'll have to take my word for that.  It does show the other stuff I cut today:

For music I brought something from my storage box, a copy of a hits album from Frank Sinatra.  I believe this was a simple copy of a disc my brother had, and while he was away on his honeymoon and I was watching his house, I copied a lot of his discs.  For example, my Bruce Springsteen compilation (two discs, with copies both on my shelf and in the Studio) came mostly from his large collection.  This Sinatra set was called Sinatra Reprise The Very Good Years.  All I wrote down was that title on the disc itself, but I'm assuming this extra long album was all his hits from his years on Reprise Records (now part of the Warner Music Group), which overlaps with most of his best known songs.  It is probably because I wrote down nothing else that this wasn't on my regular shelf but in with piles of loose discs that made it into the box I took home from storage, and thus available today.   Not my usual style, but this was my father's favorite music, so I grew up with it.  And in any case, good music to work to.

The 2026 Tournament of Art part 3

 Another weekend is in the books for the 2026 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.  Not a good one for me.  I only have one team from my bracket in the Final Four- Michigan.  And I don't have them winning another game, so normally this would be how things end for me.  However, this is about art, and I have one more of my art schools remaining- Illinois.  They beat Iowa over the weekend, which had beaten Florida in an earlier round.   So I still have stake in a team that is still going.

I do not have great confidence that Illinois will win the national championship; they are the lowest seed of all the teams that are in the Final Four.  Of course, stranger things have happened in the tournament.  After all, a few #1 seeds are already eliminated, so numbers don't mean so much this time of year.  It's really about which team has a better game on the days it plays.  What this means is that I will be back here one more time to report on what happens.  See you then.

Another End of an Era

Last night we were driving home from my uncle's house, along the beach road in Manasquan, when my mother casually mentioned that Gee Gee's closed over the winter.  Really closed, with the whole place being gutted out by the owner-the pizzeria, the arcade, everything.  I guess it made sense.  The arcade machines probably belonged to an entertainment company and could go back, and the pizza ovens probably could be sold to someone else who wanted to get into the pizza business.  Some said it was the best pizza in town, but I don't know that.  I haven't been there in almost 20 years, and there are good places that are closer than where it was.  However, it was within walking distance and once I made that walk on the behalf of art, so it's worth talking about now.

Back in 2009 I walked down to the Manasquan beach front to check out Gee Gee's as research for a new boardwalk print.  The idea was to do an arcade, for a local show, and based on the show theme and my own interest, I wanted to base it on Belmar Playland, an arcade I went to occasionally in my youth.  Unfortunately, it had been torn down years earlier to make room for houses (a real common problem around here). so all I had were memories.  One thing I did remember was that it had a section of skee ball lanes and I wanted that to be in it.  I could probably find some skee ball references on the internet, but I always prefer finding things in real life, and Gee Gee's gave me that opportunity.  

It had two main things, side by side, each with its own door to the boardwalk.  One was a standard pizzeria, and one was a small arcade with the typical machines of the era.  That included several lanes of skee ball, so I took the photo below:

Before leaving, I also grabbed a slice from the pizzeria, which I recall enjoying.  The photo I took in the deserted arcade was useful and helped with my eventually creating the boardwalk diptych I would do celebrating arcades as I remembered them from the 1970's, which is shown below:

I don't think I ever went back there again.  Like I said, there are plenty of good pizza places closer to home, and I found arcades of the 21st century to be a lot less interesting than arcades had been in my youth.  (other than skee ball, which I like, modern arcades are too heavy with coin drop and driving games for my tastes, and not much of the video games and pinball that I grew up with)  Now I know I won't be going there again.  My mother wasn't sure what will be going into the empty spaces- maybe another pizza place, maybe stores.  I'm guessing not an arcade.  Back when I was a kid, the video game machines were far more sophisticated than anything available for home use, but now home video games are much better, and there probably isn't much demand for machines you have to go out and pay for.   Arcades might attract some attention from people staying there at the beach, but I doubt that people who live in town would go there.   In the old days, it was a little different, and that's what I tried to show in my print.

Boardwalk Bar part 7

 

My car is back to functioning again, so that means a day in the Studio.   During the time I was stuck at home without a working vehicle I did a little more drawing.  What I wanted to do next was put in some figures at the back of the bar, very small, barely indicated.  After thinking about it a while, I came up with a source- Mister X.  This was an 80's comic book, originally conceived by Dean Motter, but other than some cover art, he never had anything to do with it.  Instead, the first four issues were given to the Hernandez Brothers, who were doing their landmark Love and Rockets at the same time.  This proved to be a problem, as the team of Gilbert writing, Jaime drawing, and Mario contributing a short story now and then, only got out four issues in two years of what was supposed to be a bi-monthly book.  However, they were amazing issues, far better than any of the artists or writers who replaced them.  One thing I remembered about the book was that the visuals included lots of small figures in the backgrounds which struck me as the kind of thing I wanted to do with this piece.  So I pulled out my square bound copy of the reprint of those first four issues of Hernandez work (the original comics are still in storage) and studied what Jaime had done.  I didn't copy anything directly, just was influenced by it.  No one could do a crowd scene like Jaime, as you see in the center panel above. (that's Mr. X as the dark figure in the deep center background)  I added my small figures, with an idea of how I'll carve and color them.

Today I had three things to take care of.  First was to see what my supply of Japanese paper is, before I place an order.  Now I know how much okawara I have, and that will help determine the order I put it for supplies.   Second was to cut out the margins of this new block.   Got that done as well.   What I got done today was the complete top and bottom (the long sides) and part of all the verticals, including the space between the panels.  I need to expand the outsides, but that can wait until next time.  Third was to check with Jeanne about the status of the upcoming show.  What she told me is that she sent out an email with a deadline to respond, which will be the end of the month.  How many responses she gets will determine how many pieces we get to put in.  I haven't checked that email in a while, so I will later today.  Meanwhile, below if the example of today's work:

Although I haven't listened to all the stuff I brought back from storage, today I broke with that process and for music pulled something out of my rock/pop book, something I've listened to in recent years, influenced by that television show, Jeopardy.  Sometimes the categories are little jokes that most of the audience doesn't understand, but I do.  (it's also possible that some are jokes I don't understand and don't realize are there, but I'm not worried about that today)  Anyway, the last three categories on this particular day last week in the first Jeopardy round were, "X", "Los Angeles", and "I Love That Album".   My parents probably didn't get it, but I did, as Los Angeles is the debut album from the band X, and I do love that album.  In fact, the combination of their first two albums is one of the discs in my rock/pop book.  (a more detailed write-up of this two record on one disc set can be found on this blog back in June of 2020)  In an odd coincidence, the first issue of Mister X includes a scene where Mercedes (a main character of the book) thinks she is alone and sings to herself lines from a song that I did not recognize.  Years later, I realized that they were lines from a song by X on their second album- Los Bros Hernandez were big fans of the L.A. punk scene, and X was a big part of it.  (I don't think that the book was called Mister X had anything to do with it)

The 2026 Tournament of Art part 2

 One weekend done, two more to go.  When some people fill out their brackets, they always pick by seeds, higher over lower.   This is also sometimes known as 'chalk'.  Most of the time I pick the higher seeds, as the reason they are higher seeds is that they are the better team.  Sometimes I will pick upsets, a lower seed beating a higher seed in my opinion.  In these cases, I truly believe the lower team has the best shot to win the game.  Sometimes these upset picks work out, and sometimes they don't.  Of course, sometimes the higher seed from a power conference doesn't win, and this happened a lot this year.   It's probably what makes the process of filling out a bracket and watching the games fun.  Just picking chalk is not so much fun. 

This all works out good and bad for my art schools.  For example, Villanova as an 8 seed lost its first round game to #9 Utah State.  (8/9 games really can go either way, and this year all the #9's won their games)  On the other hand, a school of interest that I had, VCU, rose above their 11 seed to beat powerhouse North Carolina (a #6) from the ACC, a conference that often gets more bids than it deserves.  Northern Iowa, from my old home conference of the Missouri Valley and one of my art schools was given a #12 seed and had the bad luck to draw St John's, a #5 with a chip on its shoulder for getting what it (and I as well) consider a relatively low seed for a team that won the Big East, both for the season and its conference tournament.  Not surprisingly, St John's dominated the game and won its next to get into the Sweet 16.

So what that leaves me with is Illinois, which beat VCU in the second game. also achieving the Sweet 16.  It was at Illinois that I had my first showing of the whole Fourth of July series, in 1994 I think.  So two of my art schools are gone, as well as my school of interest, leaving me just one of my art schools for the second weekend.  I don't expect them to survive those games, but you never know.  That is part of the fun of the tournament.  Whatever happens, I'll be back her next week to report it. 

St. Joseph's Day, 2026

Today is St. Joseph's Day, one of the few holidays we celebrate at Studio Arrabbiata.  St. Joseph is the patron saint of Italy, much like St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, except our celebration is a bit less drunken, and mostly about eating delicious pastries, like the one seen above- a zeppole filled with cannoli cream (I've also seen custard and whipped cream).  You see, St. Joseph is also the patron saint of dessert bakers, as well as woodworkers and many other things.  As a woodcutter who is also Italian, St. Joseph seems the way to go.

My mother volunteered to buy pastries today, and she did, bringing this one back from a place in town this morning.  It's a good thing, too, as my car wouldn't start today.  (it worked yesterday, and the day before) A check today verified that it's not just the battery, so work on it will have to wait until next week.  Good thing I brought the block home with me a few days ago.  Whatever drawing it needs will be finished over the weekend, and if all goes well, I'll have my car working again next week and begin the cutting.