New prints for a new book

Rocks and cups! Three three-color reductions, all printed on the sign press on transparent paper. I’m looking forward to seeing how this book turns out…

xoxo

Loneliness, Repair

I made this hand-stitched reduction linocut on chipboard for the 2013 OCAC Print Portfolio.  I really love participating in exchanges; it’s so wonderful to share work.

(This week I’m working on photographing all the things I made last semester and posting them to the website.)

Typesetting

Today I set a lot of type for the type specimen book. At first I was thinking “rrgg!” every time I had to set a line of 6 point type, but by the end of the day it was ok; maybe my clumsy fingers just needed to warm up. I am looking forward to printing this tiny type; when printed well it is so crisp! I’m finding a lot of joy in this process: exploring all of the typefaces, putting dotted lines between them, and encountering challenges (can you spy the monogram typeface? No numbers there! I think I handled this gracefully, though).

Xxoo!

Feedback

I’ve been giving away these prints I made, and it’s really fun to see where they’re ending up.

Also, I recently gave away the rest of the Lost and Found books (remember those? It feels funny to look back at old work) and Morgan sent me this photo with the caption “I lost your book in a bathroom… Hope that’s not too weird or gross.”

Burr

I proofed the teeth plate yesterday.

This photo hides it, but I have a lot of burrs to pick out (I engraved too deeply and then got lazy about removing the burrs).

At first I wasn’t wild about it because it’s not soft anymore. But now it’s rich! Rich, rich black.

In other news, the kids at work yesterday made paper fortune tellers, and I kept getting “you are rich” (and, temporally interestingly enough, “you will marry an old lady” – thanks, Supreme Court!). I am rich! Still experiencing abundance. I got to play outside and swim in rivers this weekend with my honey, so I am feeling relaxed and thankful. And rich.

xoxo!

Nesting

I’m working on the third nest, the nest of transformation, composed of an old old print from when I was first learning about intaglio. It will have a ceramic base to sit on.

My teacher told me that it is possible to fire the ceramic base with the nest on it, and the burnt up nest will leave a mark on the ceramic piece. I’m really interested in pursuing this idea, but unfortunately I won’t be able to do this in the school kiln (we have to minimize the amount of combustible material that goes in), so I’ll have to find another kiln to use. Hm. But what a moving idea, right? A powerful exercise in letting go.

Oh!

This was my contribution to the winter 2013 Postcard Collective exchange.

In case you were wondering.

Exchange (recapitulation*)

I’m so excited about the Postcard Collective winter exchange. So much good work. Thank you, faraway friends! I’m so pleased to participate! I really loved the postcards by Chris Toalson (it HAS been difficult), James Luckett, Sunday Ballew, and Amelia Morris.

Today I had a grad school interview on Skype. I think it went well, but it was also strange because the conventional interview tips don’t really apply in the same way. There’s no opportunity for a firm handshake or eye contact. Also I initially was wearing furry house slippers, but I felt compelled to put on real shoes because it was an interview, an important interview, and one should not wear furry house slippers to an interview. But of course he never saw my feet. I guess theoretically I could have gone without pants.

Technology is making life more convenient and more strange. (I did wear pants in the aforementioned interview.)

Things are really in flux at the moment in a sweet volatile blend of excitement and anxiety. I’m thankful for the grounding elements of my jobs and wonderful friends and yoga practice and art practice.

Xxoo!

*Recapitulation as in a sonata, just to be clear.

Transformation

This intaglio has been sitting idle for a while. I really like the idea of the image, but its execution wasn’t the best; there’s nothing worse than a gray intaglio.

Possible resolution? Radical transformation! I’m engraving the hell out of it. That’s one way to rich black, I guess.

In other news, my scraper and burnisher look like hot dogs in this photo. And this week we started wheel throwing in ceramics. It is incredibly challenging and fun all at the same time; I’m really enamored with the whole process of ceramics.

Xoxo

One of these things is not like the others

I suspect that’s a play dough tool (turned roulette).