Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Carts

Ahh, I'm such a lazy. I'm working on some big new things, I'm getting all packed up for Southern Graphics Council Convention, but in the meantime I fiddle away at little trivial projects like this.

Discharge screenprint on tights:
grocery-cart
(those are shopping carts, by the by)

I dyed the tights using acid dyes, then stretched them over card and screenprinted using bleach mixed with transparent base. The bleach broke down the trans base pretty quickly, so some of the carts aren't as crisp as the others. I've since made another pair of tights using a different method which worked much better and I will post those later.

In more actual art news, I have a print in this show:

Prodigal Son

haircut

Every time I'm about to leave on a trip, I always have this desire to call it all off. I've had disastrous travel experiences: fights in subways, robbed, sexually assaulted (by a professor!), lost, temporarily homeless, etc. But I'm going to go to Chicago anyway. I'm certain that now I won't be getting drunk in public, I won't resort to fisticuffs, and I certainly won't carry all of my money in cash and on my person.

This sort of Depression era habit of poverty has me perpetually cutting my own hair, despite being able to probably afford a $35 appointment every few months. But why pay someone to do something well that I can do poorly for free?

new hair

What's in Chicago? Cold and printmakers at the Southern Graphics Council Convention and for a short period of time I will be in Chicago. I bought a winter coat just for this trip, as I haven't really had a need for a winter coat in the last 5 or so years I don't own one. Printmakers reassuring each other that our medium is not dead, is still relevent, is still viable, and maybe even believing it, too. My friend and his daughter; she is 3.5 years old and I've never met her.

new hair

http://printoftheweek.blogspot.com/

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Hands were green

I did a doodle:

hands

Took a photo for drawing referrence:

hands

And then spent an eternity carving out tiny specks of linoleum until I finished and printed this:

handsweregreen

Friday, March 13, 2009

Lost

The post office sent me a letter, alerting me to the fact that they had misplaced a couple thousand dollars worth of prints. The real kicker is that these particular pieces are ones that have sold extremely well, and and some of them were the very last of the edition.

Being an only marginally successful artist is fun and exciting, every little sale a victory, but then a loss like this is so terrible. Materials and hours and hours of work is gone now and I'm considering copying my own old art just so that I can replicate those prints, to regain the sales.

Friday, March 06, 2009

"I Never Left"

My friend organized a print exchange for Ballet West's 100th anniversary. The theme, coinciding with a ballet being performed at the same time, is "Prodigal Son," and participating was only open to Utah artists, or those from Utah.

For mine, I did a monoserigraph with blind embossing and hand applied ink. Here they are with the mono and just after the blind embossing:

"I Never Left"

"I Never Left"

"I Never Left"

Here they are all finished, after applying the ink:

"I Never Left"

"I Never Left"

The show reception is March 20th at the Salt Lake Main Library, 6-9 pm, coinciding with gallery stroll. If you go, take a picture for me of the gallery, eh?

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Sugar

The first time I went to the restaurant, I noted a particular desert on the menu. Cotton candy, spun maple sugar. But, the menu noted, it was only available when Miss Dingle was working, as she was the only person who knew how to use the machine. I opted for something else instead, though, an unglamorous chocolate cake, perfectly serviceable and unmemorable.

The second time, I ordered the spun sugar. A woman carried it out, Miss Dingle I assumed, wearing a winter hat with earflaps and a flannel shirt dusted with flour. She held it up high, at shoulder level, and it floated towards us through the tables. The few remaining people eating made little sounds, sighed as the desert passed them. She set it before me, a great mass of sunset colored cloud that swayed with the little movements of the air. I pulled a bit of the fluff and ate it. And I remembered the last time I had cotton candy, nearly twenty years ago. At an elementary school fair, with the little booths staffed by parents and older students, the plastic games that they had played when they were our age. Easily won, the prizes cheaper than the cost of the ticket to play them. After collecting numerous worthless little treasures, a plastic elephant with a slit in its back for coins, a tiny cup holding even tinier monkeys with interlocking arms, most of the gamestands were being taken down, the blacktop being swept.

The man, some father of a child or retired teacher, who brought the cotton candy machine every year still had a long line before his big metal cauldron. It was late, so much later than I had ever been out before. I joined the lined that extended up the grassy slope behind the playground, and the sky darkened above us as we waited. The stars burst out in tiny explosions of light, covering the sky with a brilliance. The cotton candy was spun around and around in the machine, wrapped around the coiled paper handles, tiny wisps of pink fluff caught in the air and floating away, flying up in the sky towards the stars.