Monday, February 2, 2009

'till the fingers bleed

Hi all:

No blogging music tonight - I'm at home, it's kinda late and I don't want to wake anyone up. And my headphones aren't nearby - so oh well. My sleep schedule is all messed-up from this weekend, and I really should be trying to sleep, since I'm on the verge of getting a cold, but whatever...

Anyway, you're here to find out about art news, and I have a little to share. I just finished a roll of film today actually - I'll be dropping it off for processing tomorrow and we'll see if I got anything decent. Yes, you heard right - I don't process my own film. I pretty much stopped doing that my senior year of art school, when I decided that it was basically the pain-in-the-ass step between shooting and printing, and I no longer felt the need to do every little tiny step myself. Of course, if I needed to push, pull, or cross-process, I'd handle it personally, but for normal stuff, I'm thrilled to pay someone else. When I first moved to PA, I was nervous about finding a lab - but I found someone great who does everything out of her house. She had a retail space until the recession hit, and then she just decided to cut some costs. If she ever goes out-of-business, I'm going to be very unhappy.

This particular roll is the first one I've shot in the dead of winter with this camera, believe it or not. I was just thinking about that today, and am curious how the snow is going to read- particularly if any of these are decent enough to put through the printing process I've been using. We'll see...

Beyond that, I'm supposed to be in this show in March, but I have no idea if it is still happening. I asked the gallery director twice if she had made a decision on the work she wanted, and she said she'd let me know. In our last e-mail, she mentioned that they were struggling a bit due to the economy, so I have no idea what's going on. But, certain pieces will require re-printing, and if this goes on much longer, I may have to bow out. I'd rather do that than rush things and contribute less than my best effort.

Otherwise, I have no firm exhibition plans - which is fine right now. I can then spend most of my time creating new work (see previous post). I would like to do at least 1 show in 2009 though, even if it's just a group show. 1 show per year is good for the resume, and I feel like that is a very attainable goal. Once the new body of work is built up, I'll probably try and step that up a bit. The gallery in Easton, PA which I showed at in December is having another show in March, so I may throw my hat in the ring for that - we'll see.

On another topic, for the past couple of years, I have found myself gravitating a lot towards printmaking of various kinds: etchings, engravings, block prints, etc. I can't explain why - the tones, lines, the textural quality - I just love looking at them. Maybe it's back to that whole "loss" thing - how the detail or loss in a print changes depending on process, edition #, etc.

In fact, the first piece I ever bought from a gallery was an etching - which I just had re-framed, ironically using a frame for one of my older pieces which I no longer care for. Anyway, I still love it as much as the day I bought it.

Well, that's it for now - I'll keep everyone posted on the new work. Fingers crossed! FYI- the title of tonight's post refers to this evening: while manually winding the film back into the canister, (the camera has no rewind button or mechanism) I pulled some skin off of my finger. Not a lot, but enough to make me feel like I'd suffered a little. Between that and the frigid temperatures I endured while shooting, I'd better get something from this one!

Later...

-Marc

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