#chapelofthechimes

FLOWERS Chrysanthemums Mausoleum Chapel of the Chimes Piedmont, California 2009

Your art is so rad! <3

oh god are you sure are you really really sure????

because there are just so many things

like okay first of all us printmaking grads are just like…overworked as hell, okay? So we have to meet up every Monday morning for a process demo with the grads + printmaking focus undergrads, we are required to attend the undergrad advance print class from 9-12 on Tuesday and Thursday (no other medium is required to do this, or the extra meet-ups for that matter), we have the classes that we teach, we meet up individually with the printmaking dept head on Wednesdays and then any time we are trying to make our own work, we have to share equipment with the undergrads which inevitably becomes teaching 2.0 bc no one pays attention in class or they wait till last minute to make their shit and they’ve forgotten the demo by that point so they need my help in walking them through the processes. And I basically live in the studio on the weekends, unless I’m like, having a breakdown bc listen. Sometimes with printmaking, you spend 20 fucking hours working on a matrix for an image only to have it get completely ruined while printing. 

Like I know how to print, okay? I’ve done it…a lot. But sometimes the studio is too humid or too cold or too hot or the mag carb is too old or the gum arabic has crusties in it or the emulsion needs more processing time or???? SHIT JUST GOES WRONG SOMETIMES and there’s not a lot you can do about it except recoup and try again. Take your notes, look at your results, figure it out from there. I’m good at doing it, I actually kind of like the problem solving involved in it, but when you’re working off 3 hours of sleep and rice cakes with jam and you’ve brought your cat to the vet three times that week and cried in the car on the way home each time, sometimes you just can’t handle watching the piece you’re one color away from finishing get ruined because the block expanded from the moisture or the pressure is off on the press.

And like. Look. It’s not fair for me to come for my grad-mates. My work was generally well-received, I didn’t really have to suffer through a bad review. If anything, the printmaking head knew the work I put into making consistent and large editions (which again, is like THE MOST BASIC function of a printmaker. If you choose not to do it it’s one thing, if you CAN’T do it, GET A NEW MEDIUM). But of course it’s hard not to feel bitter when you feel like someone isn’t taking it as seriously as you are. 

Drunk Katy is pretty adorable (funny, too). :)

Talented friend is talented. Good stuff. :)

Yeah, it’s not like you don’t have some time yet before you have to start ‘dressing your age,’ whatever that means. Good on you for sticking up for yourself. :)