Whew! What a wild ride it’s been! For the past three and a
half years I’ve been going almost non-stop, doing work, making the art, payment
in sweat, blood and tears. And now I have no idea what to do with myself. It’s
been a week since I walked for my degree and since then I’ve been staring at my
computer screen pushing icons around my desktop waiting for someone to give me
an assignment, a syllabus, tell me what to do, please! Just kidding, sort of. I
certainly have been getting my sloth on this week, taking a much deserved
breather after an action packed final semester. The job search can wait until
next week. 
First off, let me wish all y’all a Happy Holidays! As usual,
it kind of snuck up on us but we have our tree up and our meager decorations
distributed appropriately around the house. And the cats haven’t totally
destroyed the tree yet, good kittehs! We’ll be celebrating tomorrow with my mom
and maybe hanging with friends tonight. We’ll see. Unfortunately, Sue and I
have both been sick, beginning almost immediately at the end of the semester
and are only getting over it now, so that has added to our lack of motivation.
This has been a good week for catching up on sleeps. 
As I said, the semester was an eventful one. I took a Music
Theory class and an Intro to Film class just for fun, but most of my time was
monopolized by my third Printmaking class and my Senior Project class. I turned
out more prints this semester than either of the previous with four large 18” X
24” poster-sized pieces and five small pieces. My secret: the campsite I
erected in the corner of the studio, a rock for a pillow and some large pieces
of newsprint for a blanket. My hobo stove set off the sprinklers a few times
but it saved me the inconvenience of going home. I focused entirely on relief
prints since that was my favorite method and tried to conceive a theme for my
work. Senior Project involved tons of work planning and producing our senior
show including the postcard and flyers, along with producing all of my personal
materials like business cards, letterheads and such. Just getting everything
framed, mounted and cut took quiet a while. Our senior show went extremely
well. Myself and my two fellow seniors filled the large hallway gallery in
Newman’s De Mattias Fine Arts center with work.
I had three walls: one for graphic design, one for printmaking and one
for painting and considering there were no other events going on in the
building that night, the turnout was great. To see all the prints I did this semester, visit my site here. 
I received a very cool honor this semester, awarded Newman’s
Sister Regina Buchholz Artist in Residence, which means I get to continue using
the facilities at Newman, with some cash for supplies like paper and ink thrown
in. I’ll have some responsibilities like maybe speaking to a class or doing a
demonstration, but I’m very excited to have continued access to Newman’s
presses, since those suckers are a tad expensive! It’ll give me the opportunity
to expand my portfolio and I’m already planning a gallery show event off campus
in the coming year, but more about that later!
Last Sunday Sue and I threw a fairly kick ass (if I say so
myself) party at our house for my graduation. Even with all the folks who
couldn’t make it, we had full house and everyone seemed to have a good time.
Music was provided by our friends Raging Sea who laid down a couple solid sets,
crowd surfing and setting their instruments on fire and such. People enjoyed
them so much that we decided not to sue them for all the damage they did.
(shrug) That’s rock n’ roll! Check out Raging Sea's music here. Of course, like most things in my life, it
wouldn’t have been half as amazing with out Sue and all the work she put in,
cooking amazing food which everyone, of course, raved about. And my Mom made
one of her famous ten pound lasagnas too, which got more than a few compliments
and was gone about thirty seconds after she put it out.
Sue survived the semester like a trooper but unfortunately
this winter break is about a week shorter than normal so she’ll have to rest
harder than usual to be ready for the coming term. At least she has something
to look forward to: it’s her last semester as Division Chair! Woot Woot! Poor
Sue, she already has the hundred-yard stare down, so here’s hoping it goes
quickly, so she can focus on the aspects of the job that she enjoys like, I
donno, teaching?
We had some bad, though inevitable, news at the start of the
semester, when Sue’s grandfather “Pops,” passed away. We managed to go back to
Pennsylvania for a few days to attend his viewing with Sue’s dad and brother,
and put in a lot of work packing up his belongings and loading a trailer of
furniture and boxes of stuff which came back to us. We also managed to bring his
very large kitteh, Missy, back with us, stuffing her under the seat on the
plane. Missy lived a very isolated and under stimulated life previously, so she’s
been a little traumatized by the move and change in lifestyle. Scratch and
Toots have welcomed her by chasing her around the house almost constantly. They
mean well, they only want to play, but she doesn’t appreciate it much. On the
upside, she’s lost three pounds since we took her in, so that’s a good thing.
Anyway, Happy Holidays to all, wish me good luck on my
upcoming job hunt and we hope to be able visit people soon, maybe by the
summer. Love ya!
