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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Collaboration Station

Black Eye Update: 5:54PM Tuesday

Today started out like any other day at Tamarind. We all met up around 9am in the studio and talked with Rodney for an hour or so about the upcoming semester. Or more accurately, Rodney talked to us about the upcoming semester.

We had our Art History Class (History of Printmaking II) at 11am, so Rodney walked us over to our building. (Once outside Tamarind, we have no idea where we are.) The AH class was okay. Mostly just introductions. I've had a similar class before, so I'm hoping it won't be too taxing. It helps that the instructor is a former Master Printer. So at least she knows what's going on.

We had lunch together as a group and then Patrick accompanied me to the Financial Aid office to take care of my business. I swear, I don't know how many of you read my early early post about my Financial Aid Fiasco, but this semester has almost been worse. We had to wait a while, but somehow managed to get in and see the FinAid officer and run back to Tamarind before our 1:30 meeting with our Collaborative Class. I'm not used to running, much less running in high altitudes... so I was a black-eyed incredibly winded wreck when I arrived back at Tamarind.

It was exciting to finally meet with our collaborators for the semester. All of the collaborative students are in the graduate program at UNM. Some of them are printmakers, but it seemed like most were painters and drawers. There may have been a couple sculptors thrown in.

Rodney handed out a collaboration schedule. It appears that the semester is broken into four 3-4 week periods. During each period, we are assigned to work with one (or sometimes two) of the artists on an edition of prints. In the end, it looks like each printer will have to do six total editions, four of which will be 3-4 color runs and two of which will be 1-2 runs. 

So for the first collaboration, I am working with Nicole on a 3-4 run print (with 3 trial proofs) and I'm simultaneously working with Jenna on a 1-2 run print (with 2 trial proofs). Besides our Art History class, this is the only thing we have to do... so I'm hoping it won't be too hard to get in two projects at once. I mean, last semester we were cranking out more than an edition a week, so this should be manageable.

The hard part is having to coordinate schedules and meetings with your artist(s). From what I understand, there is the potential for a lot of down time. If you get a proof done and are waiting for them to come in and approve it, for example. Also, it's going to take a bit for them to get their ideas together. Some of them know what they want to do. Others are completely clueless. We're supposed to arrange meetings in their studios to discuss their work and get ideas on how to translate that into a print. 

Nicole and I pinned down a time to meet on Thursday morning. I'm still waiting to hear from Jenna. I think she's a little more wary of this whole process. Or maybe she's just wary of my black eye. Who knows. 

Either way, I'm excited to be back and working on things. I have nothing to do tonight except mourn the loss of Heath Ledger, so I might go grain a stone after dinner (before all of this enthusiasm wears off).

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Back In Action

My black eye and I welcomed Patrick back to town with a trip to the old Frontier restaurant. At least I have an excuse for looking rough. I'm not sure what's wrong with Patrick here (except for maybe that Packer-loss-hangover).

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Welcome to Albuquerque (again)

You know how you always try to make a good impression on the first day of classes? Or at least I always have. I think it goes back to when I was little. My mom would always get us dressed up in our nice new clothes and brand new school shoes. We'd have our shiny new lunch box and backpack, and an unbroken, unused box of Crayola Crayons.

In college, a lot of my friends would show up in pajamas for the first day of class. And even though I'm not known as the fanciest dresser, I'd be sure to at least be wearing an ink-free set of clothes to my first day of art classes.

So here I am, 28 years old and about to begin my second semester at Tamarind. I have an Art History class this semester with an actual teacher. Plus, we'll soon be meeting our grad student collaborators for the first time.

And while I have a new pair of jeans and a brand new notebook to take with me to class, I somehow think those things are going to go unnoticed...

BECAUSE I HAVE A F*#$*#*ng BLACK EYE!!!

No seriously.

I. Have. A. Black. Eye.



I'm sure you want to know how this could happen to someone as graceful as me. Click below to continue reading the account of this unbelievable feat.

It all started this afternoon as I boarded my plane in Saint Louis. I thought to myself... "Geez... I've got two bags, one of which weighs 50 pounds. And I'm planning on taking the BUS home? That's going to be annoying. I should just see if I can get a cheap rental car for the night. That way I can go grocery shopping and stuff and not have to worry about the bus or asking for rides."

So as soon as I landed in ABQ (a long boring flight surrounded by three babies and Santa Fe loonies), I called Carrie and asked if she could check on rental car prices for me. She found me a good deal with Enterprise and off I went to the rental car facility.

[SIDENOTE: Not before running into my Tamarind friend Yuli at the baggage claim. Apparently her ride had forgotten about her, so she used my phone and found someone else to come and get her. At this point, I still thought I was taking the bus or else I would have offered her a ride.]

The enterprise folks were nice and professional and walked me out to the KIA Spectra I had waiting for me. After doing a dent-check on the car, the nice gentleman started her up and directed me out of the lot. Now all I had to do was get in the car and drive away. Easy enough, right?

Apparently not.

I start to get in the car, but it's unfamiliar and the door is higher than I'm used to. I swing the door towards me as I lower myself into the car and the next thing I know I've smacked myself under the eye with the car door. I winced and grabbed my eye. There was an agent walking toward the car who may have seen it happen, but I pretended like nothing was wrong and continued into the car. I adjusted the rear view mirror so that I might see out the back window and also see my throbbing eye at the same time. There were two small scratches under my left eye and a small bump starting to form.



I kind of figured returning to Albuquerque would suck, but not this much.

The only cold thing in my fridge was the Mountain Dew I'd left for my arrival home. I "iced" my face until my skin stuck to the can and the pain went away.



I made a grocery list, went to Wal-Mart and just got home... only to discover my newly forming black eye. I bet it's going to look even better in the morning, on my first day of classes.

Running into a car door really isn't the best excuse. If you have any better ones, let me know. I'm thinking I might tell everyone I took a hockey puck to the eye. Or that I got in a fight with a Giants fan during the football game last night.

So many possibilities.

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Sadness

I'm leaving tomorrow.

Also, the Packers lost in overtime.


So much sadness.

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Large and in Charge

Bossy
The UPS Store owner's baby came this weekend, so I've been "in charge" this week. Being in charge doesn't really involve much more than I normally do. It just means I get to be grumpy and say things like, "Do you need something to do?" As my luck would have it, this new level of responsibility coincided with our monthly bulk mailing for a local real estate company. (Not much fun and takes up a lot of space in the store.)

Visits
In addition to being bossy this week, I'm also trying to fit in a lot of last minute visits. Yesterday, I met my caricature buddy "Cookieman" for lunch. Last night, Carrie and I went to dinner at Riddles Penultimate Cafe and Wine Bar. My little bearded brother is in town today for some work related meetings and we're going to hang out tonight and watch hockey. Tomorrow night we're having dinner with my long-lost college roommate. Friday I have lunch with one of my sweet old UPS Store customers. And Saturday my mom (and maybe dad) are coming up to hang out for the day. On Sunday my focus is...

Football
Everyone thought the Packers would be playing the Cowboys in Dallas this Sunday for the NFC Championship (and a trip to Super Bowl XLII). Thankfully, Tony Romo Crappo and the Cowboys lost last weekend to the NY Giants. Since the Packers are ranked higher than the Giants, the game will be played in GREEN BAY at Lambeau Field. Despite the momentum the Giants have gained by beating the Cowboys, I still don't think they're a match for the Packers at chilly Lambeau. This is going to be an awesome game.

Touring
The hockey game last Thursday was awesome. Student night tickets aren't available until 90 minutes before the game starts, so it was a little chaotic when we got there. The lines were long and confusing and there were lots of stupid college kids trying to cut to the front of the line. We ended up sitting next to a young nerdy couple who seemed to be stuck in the mid-nineties.

On Saturday morning we decided to go to the Anheuser Busch brewery for their free tour. Carrie got her picture taken with one of the Clydesdales and we got free samples of whatever A-B product we wanted. I enjoyed a seasonal Winter's Bourbon Cask Ale and a super-fresh glass of Budweiser Select.

Returns
I leave for Albuquerque in just five days.

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Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Last weekend Carrie and I drove to Rolla to visit with my parents again.

Twelve years after building and moving into their house, my Dad finally got around to building the chimney in the living room. I guess he's been working on it here and there over the past few months. Apparently the weather and the short days have made the project quite a challenge, but he almost has the chimney bricked in. Saturday I spent the afternoon up on the roof helping my dad put the last few rounds of blocks up.


Mostly I just stood around on the roof handing my dad things, but as we reached the top of the chimney it got a little harder. My dad had some rickety scaffolding up but it was still challenging to get those last few blocks on.

Sunday afternoon we met up with my little brother and his family. After chatting for a bit we decided to take the kids bowling. Here is Alex, Dawn, and Alex's new beard.



I'm a little envious of Alex's beard. As inconvenient as it might be to have to shave your face every day, I think it would be cool to just grow a beard whenever you felt like it. In some ways it makes him look a little bit older, but I still think he sort of looks like a twelve year old with a fake beard on.

It had been a few years since we last went bowling, but you can see that I haven't lost my form. (Of course, if you could zoom in on the scores you might see that I barely broke 60 points.)


Meanwhile at the UPS Store we're still waiting for Matt's new baby to come. Business has been slow for the most part, and I usually only work five hours a day. Now that the holidays are over and people are back to work and school, my commute to the UPS Store has been taking between 45 minutes to an HOUR! Bleh. Fortunately, when I come home it only takes 35 minutes.

This afternoon I decided to go and get my Missouri drivers license. I looked especially cuddly on my Iowa license, but it was time to move on. Now the only thing tying us to that awful state is the $15 left in a bank account there.

I picked the perfect time to go to the DMV. I was the only one there! It was crazy. The other crazy thing was that they apparently still had my information and picture on file from the last time I had a Missouri license (2000?). The lady that processed my information was laughing so hard when my smiley faced picture pulled up. I can't help it that I love getting drivers licenses! I'm always cracking the biggest grin. This time wasn't much better. But I've learned to wait to get my license until after I get my hair cut. Otherwise I spend the next few years regretting it. (Perhaps some of you remember the "shadow mullet" on my Wisconsin license.)



It's student night at the Scottrade Center and Carrie and I are going to go see the Blues take on the Dallas Stars. Woo-Hoo!

This weekend we have a wedding to go to and I have Packers football to watch. GO PACK!

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