Inter-NOT

Today was pretty long and frustrating.

I stayed up late last night working on a photo file for Collaborator #1, trying to figure out how the heck was I supposed to make it into a print. We met at 10am and things were a little tense. After all my work trying to figure out how to piece the thing together, she reveals that what she really wanted was a print that looked exactly like the photograph. Now as far as prints go, I'd say that's not very exciting. There are lots of easier and cheaper ways to get that end result (digital printout, color copy, photo enlargement, etc.). But in the end, I agreed that if that's what she really wanted, I'd just do a giant CMYK print. It's still going to be challenging for me to print. It's just not as adventurous as most of the other collaborations going on.

At lunchtime I walked my rent check down to the bank to deposit in my landlord's clearing account (because apparently he's too busy to deposit the checks himself and this is supposedly more convenient for me somehow). Afterward, I went back to Tamarind and wandered around in circles for an hour or so... until the UPS guy brought my new shoes.

I don't buy shoes very frequently. I'd say I usually get at least two or three years of regular wear out of a pair of shoes before I find a new favorite. Anyway, Carrie and I are going to spend my Spring Break galavanting all over the Southwest (hitting each of the four corners: New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona). We're going to do a little bit of hiking around and I figured that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to wear my flat-footed-polka-dotted Vans slip-ons. So I ordered the cheapest, least ugly hiking shoes I could find on SierraTradingPost:



It's always strange wearing shoes that actually have support and some traction. I don't really see these working their way into the everyday wear category, but it'll be good to have them for that rare occasion when I do go outside.

After trying on my shoes and scaling my bar stool and breakfast bar in a climbing simulation, I worked on a new print. It's been a while since I made some art for myself. I've been getting so annoyed with not being able to work my collaborations, but I'm not really using all of this free time to get anything done. I had plates ready to go for my winter break but I never got around to using them, so I broke one out and started drawing on it. It was a self portrait... because I love myself. It's going to be a three run print with waxing and maybe a little embossing thrown in at the end. If it turns out good I'll post a picture.

I was so upbeat after finishing my drawing. It was nice to actually accomplish something. I was supposed to meet up with Collaborator #2 this evening, so I hurried to check my email before I left and was disappointed outraged to find that my internet stopped working AGAIN. Arghghghghghghghghhhghrrrghghrrggh. So annoying. I wasn't able to fix it before I left, but when I returned home I fiddled with the settings and got it to come back on.

Things at the studio went good. I got my artist going on her stone finally with some tusche washes. She is pretty mellow and understands that we're taking a gamble with these tusche washes. After a few quick test runs we pulled out her stone and she got to work on her landscape painting. It's kind of a depressing black and white fuzzy sort of thing. The tusche that she put down tonight looked good and I think she's hoping to finish it by the weekend. Meanwhile, Collaborator #1 will be bringing me the CMYK films for her print on Friday, so I'll be able to get busy next week after my return from Denver. Oh... I guess I didn't tell you about my trip yet. Maybe another time....

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One Week Feels Like Three Months

Artists

After our meeting with our artists last Tuesday, everybody was pretty fired up. What we didn't realize then was that most of us wouldn't even get to start working until the weekend. 

I met with my first artist on Thursday. We had a nice long visit at her studio and pinned down some solid ideas for her first print. Nicole does installations based on sites that she finds around Albuquerque. I initially thought we might work on some printed components for her installations. But I guess she would rather just make a print based on the photographs that she takes of her sites. She still needed to make a final decision for the exact image she wanted to work from, so we agreed to meet again on Tuesday, during our assigned class time to get started with things. 

Meanwhile, my other artist was missing in action for the better part of the week. She didn't return my calls or emails until the weekend. We finally managed to have a brief meeting on Sunday and I'm hoping she'll be in the studio tomorrow to get started. She is also working on a small print with Ana, so we have to go easy on her. For me, it looks like she'll be doing a smaller landscape on a stone primarily using tusche washes. That should be a blast to print if I don't completely burn it out while etching it. 

Demos

When we're not waiting around for our artists, we've been doing some demos on the flatbed press. The flatbed press is huge and German and is used mostly for monoprinting at Tamarind. I think we had one of these in the print production room at UW, but nobody really knew what it was for. I never saw anyone use it for anything besides a table.

Originally it was designed as a proofing press for newspapers and such, so that printers could check out their plates before they ran thousands of copies on their big machines. It was pretty cool to finally see the flatbed press in action. But it was a lot like letterpress in that it takes a long time to set up, just a few minutes to print, then an even longer time to clean up. 

Here are all of the rollers on the press. The rollers on the left are the inking rollers (with green ink). I think there around 13 of them. The blue thing in the middle is the big rubber blanket. And the red things on the right are the dampening rollers.

You put a piece of paper and an aluminum plate next to each other on the press. Here you can see Mick pulling a finished print out of the grippers. The printing plate is locked in to the right of it. 


The carriage with the big blue blanket roller passes over and the red dampening rollers wet the plate. The inking rollers drop down and ink the plate after it's wet. Then the carriage stops and goes the other direction. The blue roller drops down on the inked plate and picks up the image, then rolls around and transfers it directly to the paper. This is known as "offset" lithography. Because the plate never touches the paper. The ink is offset onto the blanket and then put on the paper. It's pretty cool. All of these guys seemed to think so:

We did one of the demos using Celina's plate. Here Mick and Celina are checking out one of the first prints we made with it:

Black Eye Update

This picture was taken on Friday. It was still swollen and starting to turn yellow all around my eye.

And this is me right this second. I think the swelling has gone down and it's not as yellow. But I still have a bit of red/purple there and the point of initial impact is still a bit sore. 

Weekend/Drawing

Patrick and Alex and I went to the movies Saturday night. On Sunday I worked on a drawing for Bill. Apparently they are going to the state capitol tomorrow to do demos in the rotunda. They needed a small stone to take with them... something cheesy and New Mexicoey. This is my drawing on the stone. The printed version has a bit more contrast. I'll post that as soon as I get a copy.

It's a roadrunner (the state bird) in front of the state capitol roundhouse with the zia symbol on the side. The zia is on the state flag and is a Native American sun symbol. The shadow under the bird is the Tamarind symbol. (Oh so incredibly awful). I called the print "Beep, Beep!" (after the Road Runner cartoon).  Sharon and Brandon printed up 30 of them this afternoon to give to various Tamarind donors and supporters. They borrowed a table top press from Takach and will be printing more of these tomorrow, I guess. 

Interwebs

The most awful thing happened Saturday night after I returned home from the movies. 

I couldn't connect to the internet!

How seriously awful. I mean, all I do is eat, sleep, go to Tamarind, and stare at my computer. Remove one of those things from the equation and my life becomes significantly more lame.

It was late when I came home so after an hour or so of fiddling with the wireless settings I powered it down and went to bed. I hoped it would fix itself by the time morning rolled around. But on Sunday I got up and it still wasn't working. Normally when something is broken, I just look up on the internet how to fix it. But it's hard to look up internet problems when you can't get online. For a good part of the day Sunday, I was trying to get the stupid thing to work. Apparently my wireless was working just fine. I could get signals from every router within a half mile. But I couldn't get an internet connection. I figured that there was just some minor setting that needed to be changed, or else it would just fix itself. I hardly ever have problems with my Mac which is why it's extra upsetting when things do happen. Anyway, after 36 hours without an internet connection I finally "fixed" it today. After running the various network diagnostics and setup assistants a million times, it just magically started working. Now I'm afraid to stop using it... 

LOST

My favorite show returns Thursday night and I don't have a TV to watch it! I have four options.

1. Buy a TV for LOST watching purposes.
2. Invite myself over to someone's (TV) house on Thursday.
3. Wait and watch LOST when it is posted on ABC.com
4. Not watch it at all.

Most likely I'll end up watching it at someone's house. Which will suck because not many people here share my love of LOST. And I'll probably end up having to explain everything and put up with snide remarks about the show, which is the last thing you want when it's the season premier and you haven't been able to watch the show in a million years anyway.

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