The college semester is wrapping up, with some of my intaglio class working toward a voluntary print exchange. I’ll also be participating, and I still have plate work to do–I think my students actually have the jump on me for this one.
Art Basel Miami Beach and surrounding events were something I was largely unable to attend, due to the inevitable complications of trying to balance the schedule of two professional artists (one of whom–me–is also a teacher) with schedule and needs of our 8-year old child (who is long over the novelty of art events; in retrospect, it was perhaps a mistake taking our kid to her first opening at the age of three weeks). There are several events I really regret having had to miss.
Progress reports for high school are due, college grades are due soon, juries are coming up, and work on various items relating to the grant is ongoing. I keenly anticipate what little break I’ll be able to eke out of this holiday season.
Starting in January, I’ll be teaching a five-hour long, once a week 8 AM studio on Silkscreen at NWSA. Trying to switch my schedule from an evening class mentality (the intaglio class ended at 7 PM-ish, not including clean up or transit home) to a morning class mentality is among the most important and difficult tasks I’ve got to achieve. Imagine starting a five-hour long demo at 8 AM! [For those academics out there in the non-studio fields, I know lecture classes can be fairly draining, but envision giving a lecture while working out–that’s a lot like what giving a printmaking demo is like.] I hope my students won’t be late. I hope there will be a magic coffee fairy godmother too. During the “break”, I also have to make sure the printshop will be ready for the horde of screenprinters arriving in January (the class is totally full, and students were actually turned away), as well as fine-tune my syllabus.
One of the things I’m most looking forward to about the Silkscreen class is that there will be a high number of returning printmaking students, which means that the sense of camaraderie which is an important part of printmaking classes is already partly established. I also love having a longer awareness of my students’ body of work and work habits–it makes it easier to help them figure out how best to use the processes for their own ends.
This year I’ve hardly posted any blog updates, which is interesting to me, if somewhat disappointing. I think that I’ve been stretching mentally in so many ways, that it’s been difficult to reflect upon that process in a way suitable to share with others. Every facet of my career at this point seems to have its own unique challenges–teaching high school is quite different from teaching college (and not in the ways you might assume!), forward motion on the grant at this point is primarily in the area of business meetings and real estate transactions rather than printing actions, and switching gears into artist mode for myself has been a further challenge. At times it has been overwhelming, though exciting! Putting all those new observations and skills together has been an ongoing, private transformation.