Greetings from Wichita! It's been a while, hasn't it? Toss that up to another crazily busy semester. Sue and I both have some new responsibilities this time around, both exciting and challenging. Sue's new position as Division Chair has meant dealing with quite a bit more work. I probably shouldn't go into any greater detail here (cough! hack! politics, cough!) but I'll say that Sue is rising to the challenge and doing her best to give her students the same attention and care as always. She has been enjoying teaching latin this semester, and has managed to find time to take a class on James Joyce, taught by friend and fellow English faculty, Marguerite. As for me, I applied and got a new Student Assistant position working with Newman's in-house Graphic Designer, Darrel. Which means that I am no longer just a design student, but now a student des
igner as well! I've had the position just a couple weeks but it's offered a lot of great experience. I've gotten to go to a local printer to do press checks and even direct a photo-shoot (of the campus chapel for a new brochure). I'll continue to work a few hours here and there for Julie in Arts & Humanities such as updating the HTML on the Steckline gallery's Facebook page and churning out the occasional flyer. J
ulie and Mary (director of the Art Dept) have been awesome to work with so I will miss them but I'm just across campus so dry your eyes y'all!Oh yeah, we went to the State Fair again this September. The only news to report from this go-round is...well, I can't really explain it to you. I'll just put it this way: Crispy Kreme Burger. Nuff-said. When asked how she felt about it, Sue made this face.
over from us. A section of Broadview is closed off to cars and the home owners along this stretch go to unbelievable lengths transforming their entire property. They must prepare all year for it, building giant pirate ships on their lawns, encasing their house in spiderwebs patrolled by enormous spiders. And then they hangout in front of their houses all day and night giving out ungodly amounts of candy. I wonder if they have to take out loans to pay for it all? Even our across-the-street neighbors rent a popcorn cart for the occasion. It's crazy. Go figure, wichita is a very religious city, and so naturally also has the most exuberant Halloween celebration! (Photos courtesy of the Wichita Eagle)
This semester has also brought a new arrival to Wichita, my mom Ann! Freshly retired from the Post Office (yahoo!) she took the drive out with her two dysfunctional
cats and found an apartment near downtown right next to the confluence of the two rivers and the Keeper of the Plains. Already she's made friends and has found herself busier than she was in New York. I'm sure she misses living a block from the ocean in Long Beach, LI, but she likes the more relaxed pace here and the friendliness of the people. I'm sure she especially likes not working for the Post Office.
I have to say that Autumn in Kansas is pretty awesome. The season that
lasts about two weeks in New York has been long and pleasant with warm temps here and hella more sunny days. It's also funny to note how into Halloween people are around here. Especially here in College Hill which is apparently the trick-or-treat mecca of Wichita, hosting kids from all over the city. This is our first Halloween in this neighborhood and we were not prepared. We ran out of candy three times before we decided to turn out the lights and hide in the basement hoping that the little buggers would go away. No, seriously, the kids were polite and sweet, there were just a LOT of them. Then there is the incredible spectacle of the "Halloween street" just a few blocks
over from us. A section of Broadview is closed off to cars and the home owners along this stretch go to unbelievable lengths transforming their entire property. They must prepare all year for it, building giant pirate ships on their lawns, encasing their house in spiderwebs patrolled by enormous spiders. And then they hangout in front of their houses all day and night giving out ungodly amounts of candy. I wonder if they have to take out loans to pay for it all? Even our across-the-street neighbors rent a popcorn cart for the occasion. It's crazy. Go figure, wichita is a very religious city, and so naturally also has the most exuberant Halloween celebration! (Photos courtesy of the Wichita Eagle) OK, now I have to give props to a couple local institutions. You wouldn't think I'd be blogging about a local pizza place, but I'll be damned if Bartelli's Pizzeria doesn't make genuine New York style pizza. It is literally the only place in town that even comes close. Knolla's is a local favorite that claims to be New York style, but don't be fooled, Bartelli's is the real deal. In the home town of Pizza Hut and Poppa Johns, the family that runs Bartelli's used to live in New Jersey, (close enough for us) and they know how to get their crusts both thin and chewy. Any NY pizza chef will tell you 
the secret is the water, and Bartelli's must import it straight from the Adirondacks. I also have to give it up for Raging Sea, a hard working Irish-folk band who Sue and I have seen a few times now. Just this past Friday we caught them for an intimate performance at our local favorite, the Donut Whole (mmm cake donuts and leopard print). Lead singer, guitarist, fiddler, and all around decent bloke, Shaun, also happens to be in my Contemporary Art History class.
the secret is the water, and Bartelli's must import it straight from the Adirondacks. I also have to give it up for Raging Sea, a hard working Irish-folk band who Sue and I have seen a few times now. Just this past Friday we caught them for an intimate performance at our local favorite, the Donut Whole (mmm cake donuts and leopard print). Lead singer, guitarist, fiddler, and all around decent bloke, Shaun, also happens to be in my Contemporary Art History class. Speaking of classes, check out some of the pieces I've produced in what has turned out to be my funnest class this semester, Printmaking. I bought my own carving tools and definitely plan on continuing once my schooling is done.
This is called The Lab, a linoleum block relief print. Carve the design out of a shallow block of linoleum, the areas you carve will stay white, the areas you leave raised will transfer the ink to the paper.
This is Say Nothing. A callograph which is also a relief print except instead of carving the design out, you build it up using various materials. Certain materials will give it a sense of texture. I used sandpaper to get the decaying bared brick look of the buildings.
This is a second version of Say Nothing using the intaglio method. Where a relief method uses the raised areas to transfer the ink, with the intaglio method, it's the lower areas that get filled with ink, the raised areas get wiped clean. You then use paper that's been soaked so it presses into the lower areas to absorb the ink. Creates a roughly reversed image from the relief print. Some interesting messy effects but is hard to control.
These three, called Funk 1 & 2 and Science, are monoprints, one of a kinds. You apply different color inks to a sheet of glass (plexiglass in our case) and do multiple "drops" top get the final image. Also creates some neat messy effects but I had trouble getting the colors to blend all that well.
Well, I guess that's all for this time. We love and miss you all, talk to you soon!
