Coincidence?

 We have a new pope now, Leo XIV.  First American to hold the job, a native of Chicago.  It was well covered in the news, and I did watch that.  They had a lot of time to fill, and we learned that he was an Augustinian, and a graduate of Villanova University, a math major they said.  Do I have some connection to all this?  Maybe.

Back in 1997 I was part of an exhibition organized by the Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, in the Philadelphia area.  That exhibition was called Art and Religion: The Many Faces of Faith.  I submitted a bunch of my saint prints, relatively recent to that time, and they ended up accepting four, which ended up being the most works by any one artist.  In the end, it was decided to split the show, so two of my works ended up at the Balch, and two went to the other half of the show, which was held at Villanova University.  I did get to see the Balch show, but not the other.  However I did receive copies of the catalog, which I think had images of all four works.  One of the organizers came to visit me and check out more saints, and I think bought a few.  And later she wrote and sent me a poem, a series about artists and the works they created for the show.

Now, I have some familiarity with St Augustine, who I guess was either the founder or inspiration for the order named for him, of which our new pope is a member.  He was a doctor of the church, responsible for a lot of church policies, and I did a print about him as part of my Everyman series.  Unfortunately that print is one I don't have right now, the only existing copy in storage, the catalog from the show also in storage, and the block destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.  So no photo of the image here.  If I remember it correctly, the image for the print was a church building in the background, and in the foreground, in one point perspective, a street full of restaurants and bars, as Augustine had been somewhat of a hedonist in his younger days.  I think I remember a quote from one of his writings I found in his Butler's bio- "Lord grant me chastity, but not yet a while."  Meaning, prayer to become a better person, but he was still enjoying his bad behavior.  

Some recent research shows that Villanova was founded as an Augustinian college, the only such one apparently.  Knowing that, it may not be a surprise that a graduate of the school, as our new pope is, decided to join an order made up of the founders of that school.  Perhaps he was influenced by people he knew at the school.  If I ever run into him, I'll ask.  The next question I have is did the people at Villanova have anything to do with the fact that one of my prints that was chosen for the show and was shown at Villanova University was my St Augustine print?  I don't think so, since the show was organized by the Balch Institute, and had no mention of Villanova anywhere on the prospectus.  On the other hand, maybe it was a selling point for Villanova taking the show.  I don't know if anyone is still around who knew what happened, and while the Balch still exists, it merged with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania long ago, and they took over all their material.  Doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would be kept.  Then the big question would be did the pope ever see my work?  He's an alumnus of the school, so he may have been there at times, but I also know he had spent a lot of time in Peru doing mission work, to the extent that he has a citizenship there.  If so, it doesn't seem that it influenced him, as it appears he joined that order well before that exhibition.   In the end, it all seems to be just a coincidence. 

Boardwalk Days part 51

When I got up this morning, I expected I would go up to my Studio, but I had no idea what I would work on.  I might make a few changes and try a new print of my latest Robert Johnson print.  Or maybe I would start coloring the latest boardwalk print, sitting in my drying rack for a good month and a half, and thoroughly dry by now, safe to color.  By the time I left to go up there, I had decided to let the ink dry on my block for a little longer, and do the coloring.  Brought the coloring stuff with me.

No Molly when I got there, though I did see some evidence that she had been there since my last visit- the box set to radio and high volume.  I set it back to CD and put on a disc of music, in this case tropical brainstorm by Kirsty MacColl, an album that Molly would like if she was there, and one have written about before in March of 2020.  This will be my third time coloring this print, having done a test coloring on heavy paper, and a practice proof on the same Japanese paper more recently.  If this works out, it will be the first one for the edition, a final version.  One good thing about having done this before, is that most of the colors have been worked out, so fewer decisions to make.  Most of what I did today was copied directly from the one I did last month in case I needed it for the Open Studio or the documentary reception.  Because I don't need to work out color choices, it's not colored in exactly the same order as the last color proof, though I don't think I changed too much from the last one.  Below you can see what I got done today:

I expect to be back again in a few days, but I am still not sure what I will be working on.  When the disc I had on ended I went with another female artist, one I had there in the Studio- the Righteous Ones album from Toshi Reagon, with a write up back in August of 2021.  Most of what I did today was very similar, a lot of Buff Titanium and white, and colors made from thoset, so pieces of buildings, skin tones, sand, and the boardwalk itself.  No bold colors. It's a good start.  What I do next time is still undecided.

Something I Know a Little About

 Today my feed brought me a video about some woodcut related stuff.  It seems an institution recently acquired a bunch of drawings from Hokusai that were intended for a book, but that never happened, and the drawings were never turned into woodcut prints, which is what was typically done for publishing drawings, especially someone like Hokusai, who was known for woodcuts.  I already knew that Hokusai was an artist who drew (in fact, I think at one point in his later years he adopted the name, "The man who loves to draw"), and the woodcuts he is famous for had other people involved.  This was not unusual, both in eastern and western traditions, where usually the credited artist is the one who came up with the idea and drew the concept, but left the carving of the block, printing, and coloring, to specialists of those skills.   So the fact that these drawings were likely intended to be turned into woodcuts by someone else made sense.  Hokusai's significant  influence on both the Ukiyo-e style of woodcuts, and on European modernist painting has been covered elsewhere, so I don't need to state that here.

What I didn't know was that these drawings appear to be brush and ink (including ink wash) on Japanese paper, but I had probably not given it much thought.  But again, it makes some sense.  These are black and white drawings, not the color work we often associate with this artist, but that may have been the decision of whoever published the prints.  Some Japanese woodcuts were printed in the thousands, and colors chosen are known to vary widely.  Again, this is the norm in Japanese woodcut.  And maybe if these were turned into a book, they would have been, but we don't know now.  The new owner of this work had hired a professional woodcut printmaker to turn these drawings into black and white woodcuts, which they published as such for subscribers.  This video was about that process, and the woodcutter mentioned the challenge of deciding how to turn these ink drawings into woodcuts.  Relief printing is generally a digital process, in that shapes are on or off, black or the white of the paper. And these drawings included a lot of wash, or water diluted ink, which is one way of creating a gray tone, and left the cutter to decide how to turn the ink drawings into black and white carvings.  Couldn't ask the original artist what he intended- he's been dead for more than 150  years.

In a way this is something I have dealt with before, as sometimes I draw directly on the wood with brush and ink, including wash tones, and have to decide how to covert it all to black and white shapes.  One advantage I have is I am the artist, so whatever I decide is the correct answer.  This idea that the same artist does all the drawing, cutting, and printing on a piece is a modern concept, common today.  Of course, here are a few examples from my past.  

First we have a large figure piece from over a decade ago, where I drew the main figure from a model, first in pencil, and then with the same lighting, with brush and ink, including some wash.  I sometimes do this with head and figure pieces to give myself a drawing that more resembles what I do with charcoal, to loosen up my starting drawing.  

Later I added in background, drawn with pencil and black magic markers, and cut it all at once.  Here is the printed result:

In this piece I finished last year, I drew some from life and with a mirror, and some form an old charcoal drawing, but all parts using a brush and ink. Below is the original block:

And eventually I had to convert it all to relief carving, which can only be all or nothing. There are ways to get optical gray tones (in my prints these are alternate tones to shapes of black and white), but all I have to work with is black shapes and the white of the paper.  The clock on the wall disappeared, but the rest is what I drew with brush and ink, and had to interpret from wash tones to relief.  Below is the woodcut print that came from the brush and ink drawing:

Before I start a print, I have already decided if it will be black and white or color.  Prints that are intended for black and white (such as my prints from the Fourth of July, the supermarket series, or the recent Robert Johnson prints) contain more black shapes and optical gray sections, as part of my intended value balance.  Prints that are intended to be colored (such as my saints, Ecclesiastes prints, or the recent boardwalk print) have some black shapes, but there is a lot less black, as I expect to use shapes of color, and my experience as a painter tells me that colors have varying value, and these values can be used as part of the balance. 

My point is that sometimes deciding what to do with grays is just part of the process for a printmaker.  I have had to do it from time to time, and I survived it.  I have a lot of experience printing with black ink on white paper, and I know what that will give me, and maybe that informs me for the rest.

Kind Hearted Woman Blues part 5

 I had postponed this one to get the coloring on another print done first, but now it was time to proof this block and see where I am at.  Having torn an appropriate size piece of paper earlier, all that was left was to prepare some ink, which I did.  After putting down an extra thick layer of ink (this is a first proof and they always take more ink). I started hand rubbing my proof.  

The upper part looked good.  The lower part, which includes the text, was a bit tougher, though both areas required some re-inking.  Meanwhile, I had music on.  I had brought the smaller blues/jazz book of discs with me, and started with a home burned copy of the soundtrack from Naked Lunch, featuring Ornette Coleman soloing over the London Philharmonic, which I wrote about back in June of 2019.  When that ended it seemed like time for John Coltrane, but I just listened to that a few weeks ago, so I went with another classic from a horn player, 'Round About Midnight by Miles Davis, written about in August of 2019.  

But in the end it was done.  Because of a little smear along the top I wouldn't use this one for exhibition, but then again I was just doing this one as first proof and assumed some cutting would happen before I do the final version anyway.

In general I think it turned out fine.  My standing male figure doesn't particularly look like Humphrey Bogart, but then again, he doesn't have to.  For my purposes he will do as a dejected male figure, which is all I wanted in the first place.  My female figure looks like the original charcoal drawing, which is fine because that is what I expected there.  Those are unlikely to change in later proofs.  What I may look at is the background tones on the wall, and the sheet on the bed, but that can wait until the print is dried. Meanwhile, I put today's proof in the rack to dry, cleaned up, and eventually got on my way.

Still Yet More Studio Business

 This morning I had an email from Molly.  What had happened is yesterday we got a mass email regarding the installation of air conditioners in our windows and permission to do so.  She sent her reply as a "reply all", so I got a copy of her response, and then I got his.  Molly's email gave permission for this, but requested that the air conditioner not go into the window on the right, which right now is the only accessible one.  Her stuff is piled up in front of all the others.  I don't know if it possible to have an air conditioner put in our window (in the past we were told it wasn't) but right now it is impossible to get to the windows anyway, except the one she says no to.   And one of the other windows is still broken on the outside pane, which I reported to the office last year, and I verified the broken pane by going outside, as I couldn't get near it from the inside.  I mentioned all this to Jeanne, and told her I'd send Molly an email reminding her of what she needs to do if she wants an air conditioner put in.  No idea when any of this happens.  

That settled, I wanted to prepare some paper for proofing my new block.  Did that, put the tear bar away, then got on with the coloring.  I pulled my drawing board with the partially colored proofs of St Dwynwen taped to it, and found that the paper above it must have sagged a little, so one of the colors I did last week was now spread into another area. It was a paper colored area, so I couldn't go over it.  That meant this one wasn't usable for the edition or sale.  One was fine, so I colored that one, adding the blue and red necessary.  I went ahead and did both, even though I can't make it part of the edition, it can always be a color example of the print

The one on the right is the better one, which may not be noticeable in this photo.  So I still have one good copy to offer my potential collector if she comes before I have time to print another one.

Meanwhile I had the narrower piece of paper left over from the one I tore earlier, and ink leftover , too, and decided to just pull another copy of that saint.  Unfortunately, the paper shifted as I was printing it, and I know from experience that I can't get it back, so that was the end of that copy.  Too bad, because what I had done was looking pretty good.  That is the problem with there being so much empty paper in that piece.  Wet ink tends to help hold the paper in place, but there is so little ink here.  I'll have to be more careful next time.  

Yet More Studio Business

My original plan for today was to pull a proof of my new block, but then I thought about it a bit.  The Robert Johnson print looks to be a good woodcut, but I have no immediate plans to exhibit it or sell it, so there is no deadline.  On the other hand, my St Dwynwen print has a potential collector.  So I'll get that one done first, then deal with the other. 

So today I brought the coloring stuff- all my recent watercolor purchases and the palettes I use, plus the tests made on paper and my samples.  Also brought a disc in case the day called for music, and since Molly wasn't there, I put it on.  My home burned Reverend Horton Heat collection, which you can read about in November of 2021.  After clearing my table of all the stuff I had stored on it, I got to work coloring the two prints I had stretched and taped last week.

As is my custom I started with warm and light colors, which today meant all the browns and neutrals.  So a lot of earth tones, a lot of quinacridones, a bit of titanium white.  Results are below:

This image has a lot of unpainted (paper colored) areas, so it didn't take long to do this, and all I have left is some intense red and blue, and those are small areas.   Next time maybe I do those and print the other block.  I'll probably need two discs for that.

Some Artists in Newark

 Tonight I was watching Antiques Roadshow, a PBS program where ordinary people wait in long lines at historical sites to show their treasures to professional educated evaluators, to see if they are actually worth anything, and what the estimate is.  Sometimes the objects are just junk, and sometimes they are quite valuable, and of course there is a lot of in between.  Tonight's show (recorded somewhere in Maryland) involved two people who brought art by names I know well.

Back in 1994 I participated in a small works show at Montclair State, which in itself was an unusual show in that the jurors were asked to attend the opening where artists could confront them about their choices for what got into the show and what won prizes.  I did that part once myself, as I was usually in Illinois when the show actually happened.  Didn't talk to the juror that time, but her reasons for giving prizes were pure nonsense (she clearly didn't know the subjects of the art she was looking at, yet chose prizes based on those) At the time of this show, my parents were still living near there, and so my mother went to go pick up my works after the show ended.  At that time she was asked to donate one of my pieces to a fundraiser show at Aljira, a non-profit gallery in Newark, and she agreed.  What they wanted was a diptych of prints from my Fourth of July series, in this case October 12th and 13th, which were some bees and a giant cribbage board made by one of my fellow grad students as part of an art project.  Later that fall I got a program from the show.  If I recall, people who bought tickets to the show got their choice of one of the donated works, and some bigger name artists also donated works, which where raffled off for more money.  I was familiar with one of the names from seeing a postcard on another grad student's studio door.  A friend back home was very impressed when I mentioned some of the names on the list of big artists.

Finally I remembered where I had seen that first name and asked the grad, a friend named Suzanne, if I had seen a postcard with the name of that artist, Faith Ringgold, on her door.  She confirmed this and wondered why I asked, so I told her.  She asked if there were any other big name artists in the show, and I mentioned another one, Elizabeth Catlett.  Suzanne asked me, "Do they think you are black?"  I didn't think so.  She asked if there was anyone else in the show.  Yes, I think Jacob Lawrence is part of it.  "ARE YOU SURE THEY DON'T THINK YOU'RE BLACK?!"  Again I said I didn't think so, since they knew my name and it was my mother who was there to pick up the work.  Suzanne, who was African-American, was more concerned with this kind of thing than I was.  I have no idea what happened with the show, meaning how much money was made, or who ended up with my print.  I don't remember if I was in any other shows at Aljira or not.  They closed in 2018, but I was in other shows in other locations in Newark over the years, at least four I can think of off the top of my head.  

Anyway, the reason I was thinking of this story tonight was that two of the people who brought things to be evaluated had art- watercolors by Faith Ringgold, and prints from Elizabeth Catlett.  All acquired cheaply from people who needed to make some money immediately, and now worth a whole lot more money than they paid. I've seen work by Ringgold and Lawrence in art history textbooks I have taught with, though as far as I know I haven't been in any texts yet.  I've had students write reports and things about seeing my work in exhibitions at their schools, so for now I have to settle for that.  My work was shown on a local PBS recently, but I don't think anything has ever been on the Roadshow.  But at one time we were all hanging in a space together in Newark, and I have a printed program that proves it.

Studio Arrabbiata on Television part 2

 A little past 6:30 I made my way upstairs to the pre-broadcast reception.  Even from the basement I could hear the crowd on the first floor at the top of the central staircase.  I took the elevator up and saw a good crowd there.  And lots of food.  I checked it out from end to end.  Nothing was labeled, so a lot of people were just guessing what was in the trays.  It all smelled good at least. 

The above photo doesn't really do it justice, as you can't see the far end, which is where the desserts were.  The big problem was no empty tables around.  As an artist I am used to standing and eating, but I didn't want to make myself a mess at that point, so I found a place to set down my full plate, ate quickly, then went back to talking.  I saw at least 30 people there, mostly gathered around the food and beverages, but only a few faces I recognized.  

Eventually our documentary creator, Steve Rogers, came in.  I recognized him and we waved at each other.  The time when he was supposed to start talking passed, but I think he had already told Jeanne he didn't have that much to say.  As it turned out, he only spoke for about 5 minutes before the show, mostly to talk about how the documentary came about, and then we were ready for the show.  It was streamed and projected there in the main theater on the 1st floor.  It has been mostly restored to how it looked when the original school opened, and it is used quite regularly these days for stage productions, music shows, dance recitals, etc.  Tonight, it would be to watch television.

As for the documentary itself, as I had been telling people, the producer probably shot maybe 50 hours of footage, and the show was only to be 30 minutes, so I had no idea what would be used and not.  I had no control over this anyway, and wouldn't know what would appear until I saw it.  

Above, you see my hands carving a block, holding one of my gouges.  Below is a close up of a print that has been shown here many times.  It was probably the most recent finished print before this interview, which was sometime last summer.

As it turned out, I was in it, but not much.  There were a few scenes of my hands cutting wood, a few images of my woodcuts, and one brief close-up of my face.  None of my interview, and I don't know if that is because he didn't think I said anything interesting, or because of technical issues.  Not a problem, as I'd rather have people see the art anyway.  At least my name was spelled correctly in the credits.  The longest interviews were with "little Bobby" Duncan, Jeanne, former director Nichole, and the grandchildren of founder Herb.  The documentary talked about the history of the school, and the process of turning into an arts center.  We got quick views of some of the artists in their studios.  I know from experience that viewers tend to not be interested in watching artists work, so that we are mostly not shown is not surprising.  

Kind Hearted Woman Blues part 4

I drove up to the Studio building in afternoon, in preparation for the evening premier of the documentary.  I figured it was best to get there a little early and get parking.  As it turned out, I was right- even though I was there an hour and a half before the scheduled events, all the spaces in the front next to the building were already filled.  Luckily, the ones on the far side of the lot were still empty, so I had plenty of options.  

I went down to my space.  First I took care of taping down the two Dwynwen proofs to a drawing board in preparation for coloring. Didn't get a photo of that, but it's not that exciting.  You'll see the results when I start coloring it next week.  Mostly my plan to kill time involved finishing the cutting on my recent Robert Johnson block. All I had left were a few words in the bottom row, so I took care of that.  Results are below:

That block should be ready to go.  I'll try proofing it next week and see if it ready.  If so, on to the next thing.  If not, go back and cut some more.  As I worked, I saw a few cars pull into the back lot.  Looks like we will have a good crowd for the premier.

Studio Arrabbiata on Television

 The tv documentary made about the Jersey Shore Arts Center and its tenants finally airs tomorrow night at 8 pm.  The show is called Here's The Story: Old School Art School.  It will appear on New Jersey's PBS station (channel 8 on our local cable system) at that time, and anyone who gets that station can watch it at home. However, if you are a tenant of the building, we are having a special screening of the broadcast in our 1st floor theater, complete with refreshments before, and hosted by producer Steve Rogers.  I know he took video of me a few times, and interviewed me as part of his process.  I have no idea what he used of all that (if anything), but I did my part, and I'll know more after I see it.  If he uses any of the footage shot in our space, you'll see a view of what the Studio actually looks like, or maybe some of my art, or maybe both.  The show will also air sometime late at night next week, and possibly other times in the future, but I haven't heard anything yet.  This week it's part of a festival of shows about the local area, so there are some other documentaries floating around on that network, mostly about Asbury and such, but I had nothing to do with those.  If you have a half hour to kill tomorrow night, you can check it out and learn more about what we do in our old building on the corner of Main and Main.

Jeanne, our director at JSAC, said she would send out a reminder to the tenants today via email, and she did.  How many show up is unknown right now, but she told me (and wrote) that things would start on time, so for those of us in the building, we better be on time.  Those watching at home will do what they want.

Kind Hearted Woman Blues part 3

 Not much to do with the proofs I pulled on St Dwynwen the other day, so today I went back to my recent Robert Johnson print.  I had brought the jazz/blues book of discs today, and since Molly wasn't around, I got to play some, suitable for the print I was working on.  Went with blues, and my live Robert Cray show, written about back on July of 2019, and many times since.  Good music to make art to, then and now.  

I finished the image area a while back, but the lyrics are still not done.  They are all drawn now, so it's just a matter of cutting out those letters.  Today it was working on the second line.  I finished that line of backwards block printed letters about the time my disc ended, and decided to call it a day right there.   A photo below shows what I did today:

Not much left here.  Just a few words on the third line.  I won't bother trying to remove that knot of wood- such things are just too hard for my gouges to cut.  However, I have nothing there, so some blue tape will take care of that in the printing.  After the whole thing is cut I'll pull a first proof and see what I got, and if any more needs to be cut.

More Studio Business

 The other day I brought home a color proof on St Dwynwen on okawara to see what colors I had, and if I would need any more, to complete the job.  Part of this was successful in that I did identify some of the colors I may have used, and colors I had that I can use for the new copies.  However, some I was just not sure of, and since I printed those new ones on Rives paper, it made sense that I test new color mixes on that paper.  And I do have some scraps from trimmed prints of that paper.  However, those are all at the Studio, so today I brought everything back there.  First task of the day was to see what I had and what I could do with it.  I had made sample cards of the previous paints I bought, but not of all the new ones, so I did that.   Then I mixed a few colors to simulate what I had previously used on the print to see if I could match it.

I think that I did. I will let the ink on the proofs I pulled a few days ago continue to dry until next week, then color them with what I found today.  That only took a few minutes, then on to the real work.

Studio Business

 I'm going to put aside my current Robert Johnson block to work on something else- for money.  I invited some interested (in my work) persons to the Open Studio last week, but no one of those people came.  I did have 48 make the trip to my space, and some of those asked some questions, so maybe something will come from that. Today I heard from one of those people I had invited, says she only found the message now, but that's fine as we had plans for another day anyway.  I did hear from another one last week, who again couldn't make that day, but still wants to purchase something, a print seen on a previous visit.  We exchanged a few emails, settled on a plan, and today I started that process.

What she wants is a copy of my St Dwynwen print, the idea for which came from a tv show, and is not in my source book, so I decided not to make it part of the Everyman series, but came up with a new format and style. I verified that I had the block on my last visit, and we worked out paper and price by email, so today was pulling some proofs.  Molly wasn't around, so that meant music, and I had brought my rock/pop book of discs today, and from that I selected Giant Songs from Giant Sand, a favorite for art making, and you can read about it in July of 2019 if you want to know more.  

After putting on some music, my first step was to find the originals, block and print.  The block was on the shelf where I had left it.  I believed the print was in my rack, left there since I showed it to this collector and her husband a year ago.  I had made the print originally for the East Meets West show at the JSAC back in 2019, relocated from its original location in Belmar, when the new administration at Belmar Arts decided they didn't want to have it.  As far as I know, that was the only place the print was exhibited, as a year later we were deep in the Covid pandemic and most galleries just shut down, and some never reopened.  Of course, whatever print I had in that show is now in storage, so I can't use that to figure out what they saw last year.  What I did find in my rack was a color proof on Okawara, which means the one I framed and showed was one on Rives Lightweight, which works out well, as I have more of the Rives in my supply. 

Next step was to pull out my supply of the Rives paper.  I did have in my boxes some pieces of Rives that were too small for Robert Johnson prints, but were big enough for a saint, or this one, too.  I picked out two that were a good size for this project.  Then it was just a matter of inking the block and pulling proofs of St Dwynwen.  The image is all line work, so relatively easy to ink and hand print.  Results can be seen below:

This didn't take too long, so I was already cleaning up while that first disc was still playing.  I put today's two proofs in my rack to dry, and brought the colored proof I had home, so I can compare the colors there to what watercolors I have, to make sure I can properly color this print. I believe I will have what I need, but I will check later.  And with that, I headed home.

Art Spiegelman

 Last week I recorded an episode of American Masters on local PBS that sounded interesting to me, the focus being on cartoonist Art Spiegelman.  Watched it in bits and pieces, and finally finished it last night. But even before I finished watching it, I realized I should have this guy on my list of people who influenced me.

I first became aware of Spiegelman back in the early 90's when his work was getting a lot of attention.  He had come from the underground comix movement, and this period was well covered in the documentary.  Not news to me, but I found out about that later.  In those days he worked with a lot of the giants of those days, names I knew well.  But what was his biggest deal was a strip called Maus.  I believe it was originally published in a magazine called Raw, which specialized in experimental comics, things bordering on fine art.  I think I owned a few late issues, from those years.  It was decided it didn't need to exist anymore, as there were now other places such cartoonists could be published.  Around that time (when I was going to Montclair State and living not far from NYC) the first bunch of stories were published in square bound format books, two volumes, and translated into many languages.  Won many awards, and was banned from some places.   The strip told two main stories simultaneously, the true story of his Polish Jewish parents being sent to a concentration camp and surviving that, eventually rescued by Americans and emigrating to the United States, where their son was born and raised, and the story of the adult Art dealing with his widowed elderly father, a somewhat cantankerous old man.  Once in a while the story might divert briefly to contemporary Art dealing with life as a cartoonist making art about the Holocaust.  Spiegelman was well schooled in comics history, and decided to tell this story with the classic cartoon animal hierarchy of mouse, cat, and dog, though in this case all the Jewish characters (of any nation) were shown as mice, all Germans (Nazis and others) shown as cats, Americans as dogs, and other peoples and animals appear.  Sometimes they are fully anthropomorphized animals, with human proportioned arms and legs, and clothing, sometimes they look like humans wearing Halloween masks held on by strings.  The narrative and images pull no punches, and it got him a lot of attention.

I first became aware of him around this time, as MOMA did a whole big show featuring him.  I believe it was in their first floor projects room, not in one of the big galleries on the upper floors.  On desks or tables they had copies of the recently published books. and the walls were covered with the original art, mounted in a grid format.  I don't remember if they were the original art, or images made from the original drawings, or just pages taken from the printed graphic novels.  That I remember it well after more than three decades means it must have made some impression on me.  I did eventually buy the books.  In the 21st century when working at a university I created a graded project for my Intro class that was based on Maus.  My version was a pastel project, an autobiographical symbolic comic strip, with 16 panels over two pages in their large pad, what had to be a true story from their lives told with symbolic characters.  The symbols could relate to the story itself (as the Maus characters do), or just be personal symbols that the student chose.  These characters could be as personified (faces, arms, legs, etc) as the students wanted.  Anything commonly used in comics could be used, so caption boxes, sound effects, dialog and thought balloons, etc) .  Story told could have taken place in a single day, or over a lifetime.  (I wanted to make the project something the students could handle, whether they had any artistic experience or not, as was the nature of the Intro class, with did not allow art majors) It was not unusual for me to turn to my background for ideas for class- I showed Robert Crumb comix (things acceptable for public consumption) when talking about line to all my students, and many of my classes had a printmaking project that fit within the nature of the particular class- collagraph, woodcut, or monotype.  

So how does this make Art Spiegelman a major influence on my art?  For one, I have been looking at comics all may life, and while I wasn't looking at his comics in my younger years, I was looking at some of the same people that he admired, the legends who created Krazy Kat, Little Nemo, etc.  And maybe as a result, all my art is based on narrative.  I'm no abstract expressionist- my art is going to tell a story, even if the viewer isn't sure what it is.  The important thing is that I am interested in the piece.

A second thing may be in the exhibition.  My most famous piece is a series I did in graduate school in the midwest, something called the Fourth of July.  It was a woodcut per day for a year (two Fourth of July prints) black and white, about 8"x 5", and each was about something that happened in my life that day.  So like Maus, it is autobiographical and black and white.  However, I don't consider this an influence from Maus, which I would have seen before.  I think the format and idea owe as much to my friend Dave Lasky and his mini comic story "It was the Fourth of July" (which both told of his adventures that holiday and celebrated the idea that making art about everyday things could elevate those things to high art, and to the woodcut novels of Frans Masereel, a huge influence on my development.  Although individual prints from the series have appeared in many shows, the whole set has only been shown 4 times, twice in Illinois, and twice in New Jersey.   These were always in a grid format, reflecting the space I had to show it in.  The second showing was as part of my MFA show in Carbondale, where the individual prints were mounted on wood panels, which were bolted together to make one large piece, shown below:

The last showing was in Belmar, where I had raised the idea of offering a show as a prize, and in my second such prize show I claimed the largest wall as mine and showed the complete Fourth of July.  Below is a photo from that show in 2013:

Unfortunately, most of the blocks were destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, and can't print more than the two complete copies I have.  I'm not saying I will never show the whole thing again, but the images are more precious now, and I will ask a more important space before I do that again.  Meanwhile, the whole set can be seen online here.

The question is, did I choose this grid format because of having seen the walls full of Maus a few years earlier?  I don't know, and don't think so, but there's no way to know now.  I may have gone that way because it was the most practical way to show the set.  

One thing I did learn from the documentary was that Spiegelman was a huge fan of both Frans Masereel and the wood engraver Lynd Ward and spent much time studying them.  I am also a fan of both wood based artists, owned copies of books by both, have made art that was directly influenced by both, and shown their work to my woodcut students as examples to emulate.  So it looks like we were both influenced by some of the same people, whether it be the comics guys or the fine art wood illustrators.  On the other hand, in comix tradition, Spiegelman has always favored transgressive art, while I try to be more subtle, letting the viewer decide what they are seeing and what they think about it.  Just last week I was explaining this to a visitor in my Studio, who was looking at a postcard from my Ecclesiastes series, and was enjoying the hot fudge sundae, until she finally noticed the flies on it, my take on the fly in the ointment passage.  

What I told her was that in a typical gallery setting, most see the sundae from a distance and are attacted to it, until they walk closer to it and see the flies.  Most are disgusted at that point, but I've heard some say they would just eat around the flies.  Some people just can't be helped.

Easter Bunny?

 I looked out my back window this today and saw this in my backyard.

No brightly colored eggs, but today is Easter Sunday.  What this means, I don't know.

Kind Hearted Woman Blues part 2

 Today work continued on the latest block.  Brought the smaller book of Jazz/Blues discs, and from this book decided to go with some John Coltrane today.  Started with the legendary A Love Supreme album, at least my home burned copy of it.  I had finished most of the two main figures last time, so today I started with what remained of the bed.  When the disc I had was finished (and it is a short album) I went on to the other Coltrane that I have access to- My Favorite Things, and you can read my write up of both classic albums back on March of 2023, surprisingly, my only other time of listening to both albums in the Studio.  This was probably about the time I worked on more of the wall, big shadows there and cracks, some of which was copied from another print in this series.  Not so much laziness, as trying to be consistent with a similar room, and probably the kind of room Johnson knew well.  The state of my block at the end of the session can be seen below:

Of course all of this line work I left there today, kind of a cross contour thing, is dependent on how it looks inked up.  If I don't like how the first proof looks, I will do some more cutting to make it work better.  But for now what is there looks fine.  I think that's all for the first state of the image area. Next time I'll tackle the rest of those lyrics.  It's coming along quickly, and so I don't expect more than two more cutting sessions.  

Kind Hearted Woman Blues part 1

 Two days ago we had an Open Studio event at the Jersey Shore Art Center, and despite the gray weather, we had a decent turnout.  Although a lot of people have said that it was lighter than usual, I had 48 visitors in 4.5 hours, which is as good as I have ever had.  Says something about the power of promotion.  Tell visitors that there are artists in the basement and they actually go down there.  Hope they remember this next time.  Of course, that meant I had to have something to work on, both to keep myself busy during the hours I was there in my space, and to demonstrate what I do to whoever makes it down there.  I had brought the last project to a level of completion, so that meant starting something new.

The easiest thing to do in a case like this is to continue an established series.  I didn't have another boardwalk piece idea ready to go, so I decided to do another Robert Johnson print.  The show in Nashville may be off, but I've now shown work from this series in four shows, and response has been positive, with a few sales.  At the time I started these, I wrote down lyrics to several songs.  I had firm ideas for the first three, and did those.  I had more ideas, including one that developed after I had done the first three, and did three more. I went through my list of potential lyrics again, and decided I at least had ideas for three more.  I don't know if all will work out, so I went with one I was closest on, Kind Hearted Woman Blues.

The line I chose was from the song's bridge- "You break my heart when you call me mister so and so's name."  When I first started this series a few years ago, I didn't have an immediate visual, so I set it aside for a while, but now I needed something and gave it some more thought.  No man wants a woman to confuse him with some other guy, and arguably the worst time for this is during or immediately after sex.  I have no doubt this is what Johnson was thinking of when he wrote it. Still not knowing where these things may be exhibited, I decided the safest thing would be to go with the latter.  Looking back through past charcoal and pencil drawing I have done, I came up with a female laying down in bed, with a man walking past, dressed and covering anything possibly objectionable on her.  For the woman I found something I had done before that I could reuse for this, a charcoal drawing done in the figure group I used to participate in at JSAC.  The model was reclining on the floor, head maybe slightly tilted back- exactly what I needed.  For her partner I figured I would just make up something, as I have done for some other figures in this series.  I set the idea aside for a little while to work on some other things.

Then a few weeks before I would be cutting it, I saw something on tv that might just do.  There's a Bugs Bunny short from 1947 called "Slick Hare", which is about a fictitious Los Angeles expensive restaurant and night club (The Mocrumbo, with dinner $600.00, but only a slight down payment, a no co-signer necessary)  Set in L.A. naturally a lot of the clientele were Hollywood stars, the sort of cartoon Warner Brothers had produced in the past.  Considering the size and cost of the restaurant, it is a surprise that they only had a single staff member, Elmer Fudd, who was both the only cook in the kitchen and the only waiter for all the tables.  A customer calls him over, and it's Humphrey Bogart, who played a lot of criminals and detectives in Warner Bros movies and I guess had a reputation as a tough guy, which he backs up by pulling out a large Tommy gun and dropping it on top of his table.  He wants an order of fried rabbit, and he wants it quick, or else...

Poor Elmer searches the kitchen in vain for a rabbit, but luckily, the restaurant has recently gotten a crate of carrots, and once again Bugs's love for such things has put him in an unfortunate place, and Elmer is determined to satisfy his customer.  (by the way, I have had fried rabbit a few times, and it isn't bad, but if I was going to such an expensive and fancy restaurant, I'd order something better) Bugs has no desire to be eaten, and uses interaction with other celebrities (I recognize Ray Milland, Frank Sinatra, Carmen Miranda. the Marx Brothers, among others) to avoid butchering for a while, but eventually Bogey comes into the kitchen looking for the fried rabbit. Elmer can't help him and fears the worst, but it turns out his customer had a reason for his demand (I won't spoil it here) and is willing to settle for something else.  

One thing I like about the cartoon, was that Bogart often had his head down, which seemed a good pose for my depressed guy (and kind of necessary when talking to Fudd, who is maybe 4 foot tall at best) plus was drawn as a naturalistic adult male, and I did a few sketches.  However, he is dressed in a black suit and wears a bowtie, which might make sense for this fancy restaurant, but not for this character I imagined for my print.

But then I remembered something else I had on my DVR, a classic Bogart movie ("The Big Sleep") where he plays a private detective who goes to visit a potential client, an old man who lives in a green house and tends his orchids, an excuse to sit in hot and moist conditions he needs now.  He enjoys watching the detective drink whiskey and smoke (more things his frail health won't allow him to do) as he hires him to get rid of someone demanding money for one of his daughter's indiscretions.  What worked for me was that old man gave Bogart permission to take off his jacket and tie in the heat (and he rolled up his sleeves) perfect for what I wanted.  And the old man was in a wheelchair, so Bogart had to look down at him.  I froze frame a few good poses, and did some sketches.  

I had brought the block home after sawing it loose, and a few days before the event I started the drawing.  That included a frame the right size for the image, and lines for the lyrics.  These were roughed in first, then later redrawn and properly lettered for the final version.  I cut out the margins and the first line of lyrics at the Open Studio. then brought the block home to make some adjustments to the drawings, including studying them in a mirror.  I learned as a painter that faces and bodies that look fine often aren't when looked at in a mirror, and these figures will be seen in reverse, after cutting and printing.  That means now is the time to check, before I cut anything.  As it turned out, the figures were mostly fine, except I wasn't happy with the one hand I had for the male (the one facing toward us, with the other I guess hidden behind him) so I redrew those from my sketches. They aren't great now, but much better than they were.

Back to the Studio today, and no Molly (in an email she said she was still feeling ill and wouldn't be in today) so I was listening to music.  I started with a home burned disc, a copy of an early album by Southern Culture on the Skids, coupled with some favorites from the Chickasaw Mudd Puppies to fill up the disc (and written about back on November of 2019).  When that ended I continued the country theme with another home burned disc, favorites from an anthology album from Townes Van Zandt, previously written about back on October of 2019 if you want to know more.  By this point I had done most of the two figures, and decided to save the rest of the bed and wall for future visits.  Results of two days' cutting can be seen below:

Cleaned up and went home.  I'll continue the cutting in a few days.  By the way, both figures combine pieces of two drawings to make each.  I think it worked out.

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.