Back in the Saddle!

After achieving tenure, several national and international exhibitions/workshops (during an illness, no less), publishing an article with my collaborators, and the Covidiocy, my studio practice is back on track. (Whew!) It’s time to gain some closure and wrap up open projects so I can move forward with new ones.

My Venus Transit/Rise of the Divine Feminine/Colony Collapse Disorder (title TBD) book is keeping me busy. I’m carving a large linoblock to be used as a background pattern for pages as well as additional images to move the viewer through the progression of ideas. This week I brought over a thousand sheets of handmade paper (made with my Root River Papermill crew: Caren Heft, Jeff Morin, Brian Borchardt, and friends) to a local printshop to get two sides trimmed so I can register the sheets on my Vandercook #4, aka “Lucky”, when I get to printing, and my new bees and quads arrived last week. I can’t wait to crack open the type and get started!

We’re also moving forward on the wave project. I took a Rhino class with Arthur Hash this summer so I can learn the program and we can take the files and cut them into industrial foam. (I also took a great chapbook design from Faride Mereb at the NY Center for the Book but that’s another story.) Once we figure out how to get the files working on the ShopBot, we’ll be scaling them up, either to 4′ or 8′, depending on how much resolution we can retain. Chances are good I’ll be adding hand-carving to the foam but I’ll worry about that when we get there. One step at a time. There are additional items on this list, of course, and you’ll hear about it here.

Like a lot of friends, the coronavirus sucked my motivation dry so last summer was a bust; not a lick of creative activity. I value the discipline of showing up at the worktable though, so my Plague Journal project–a drawing a day–continues and it’s become an activity of its own. Here are a few recent entries to entertain you while I get back to carving.
See you soon!