Summer heat...

Goodness! It has been almost 3 weeks since the last posting. My only excuse is that I'm suffering from the summer heat: my place is a true scorcher. I think the thermometer is broken because it was hot, but I don't think that my balcony really had 110 deg F in the shade. But it sure was hot. And it was hotter indoors. Not a good time to get a lot of art done, but I still managed a little bit over the last few weeks. From all I hear it's very common that printing studios take time off in the summer because it seems almost all printing studios are really hot in the summer. My place is no exception. I still managed to finish a decent print, though, and here it is. It's appropriatedly named "Summer Heat". Originally I was thinking of forest fire or something along the lines, but considering how I burnt up while working on it...

"Summer heat" - 3 color wood cut on hand-made recycling paper, 8" x 6". I found this gorgeous, very heavy, recycled paper at Flax in San Francisco and decided to use that paper for this print. Partly because I was curious how it would work (it worked splendidly) and partly because I wanted to make a statement about recycling, the environment etc etc. Yes, this print may be not as archivally stable as one printed on super-duper high end printing paper, but it's worth trying to be environmentally conscious as an artist. At least when it's possible!

The other print shows a couple of prints from a varied edition of greeting cards I also made recently. No major artistic achivement, but they were fun to make. A while back I decided work on small prints like this one every now and then -- just for fun -- and send them to friends and use them as greeting cards. It motivates me to practice more lino/wood cutting and people who got those cards so far seemed to enjoy them. So there we go. Printed on colored (acid free/supposedly archival) card stock I picked up in a discount place a few months ago...

Oh, and there is news too. The monotype that I had at the ICA monotype marathon was sold! :)

More glass!

And another posting about glass! I completed my 4 week glass class and added another session for practice. And it was well needed - it's really ALL about practice in glass working, I can see that already. Of course, the pieces I can create after only 20+ hours of training cannot be called glass "art", but I'm still proud of them. And - I finally made something that's actually useful: a little vase (about 5" tall, that's approximately 12 cm). It even looks decent. I also created an ornament (the other photo) which is really a bubble and a hook. Those hooks are much harder to make and attach than one might think... So there we go.

But the big news of the day is that I just found out that I will have the opportunity to show paintings in downtown San Jose in October. The location will be Cafe Pomegranate on E. San Fernando street. I am not 100% sure yet what the show will focus on, but there is a good chance that I will show paintings on burlap again (hopefully also a few newer ones).