« sweet sixty-nine | Main | meet miss henry »

March 10, 2008

that kind of day

The first day that Peter leaves here always feels like a write-off even if it's actually semi-productive. I see him off in the morning and immediately head to the studio to try to overcome the empty feeling by forcing myself to work. And I did do quite a bit of work, printing a layer onto six dresses and eighteen prints, but I've got my system down so well by now that this is less than two hours of work, after which I was back at home on the couch, watching Sopranos, knitting, feeling empty. I managed not to totally fall apart and eat popcorn for supper (like last time), but I felt like I could have gotten more out of my day.

This is the last such day I can have for a while, because my installation has to be delivered to the museum on the 24th (yeah, so the other day when I said I had 24 days? I was in denial, it was really only 21 days. Don't talk to me about it). The list of things yet to be done is actually not that daunting, I just need to have good time management. Here's the list:

-finish two large prints (really only an hour or two of work, tops, just a few more layers of solid colour for the most part)

-print a map legend (letterpress);for this I still need to get downtown and buy paper and carve a couple of little lino blocks (or make photopolymer plates if I can remember how to use the platemaker)

-silkscreen 20 tags, then fill them out (with typewriter and date stamp)

-clean out cabinets, sand, paint

-build a little table for the cabinets to rest on (not as big a project as it sounds)(still need to pick up materials)

-assemble hanging system for prints (need to buy pvc pipe, dowel)(can't finish this until book cloth order comes in)

-make 20 books (again, not as big a job as it sounds, probably two full days work)(need to buy paper for this too)

-and of course continue to print, wear and document dresses until the last day, March 23 (last day before delivery of work)

I also have to make one more new dress, which will be a transitional garment that I'll wear for a week, starting on the day I deliver my work to the museum. I think that's everything, though. For those of you who know how this installation is coming together, if you think of anything I've forgotten, please don't bother to remind me. I can assure you I'll think of it at 4 in the morning and it'll be enough to keep me awake until the alarm goes off, but for now I'd like to believe that this is all of it.

I did manage to get Miss Henry blocked today, a mere three (maybe four) days after finishing all of the knitting. I've all but given up trying to get a decent photo of the colour.

I'm now trying to avert my eyes when I walk past the blocking towel in the middle of the floor, ignoring how small she looks while I use all of my mental powers to will her to fit. I wanted the fit to be trim and close, less blowsy than the pattern photo, but now that she's laid out there the old fear is upon me, that my belly will be hanging out of the thing in an unsightly manner. We shall see. For now I'm pretending to have faith in my mental powers, and if those fail, well, it's not like I ever button a sweater over my gut anyway.

I also finished the back of Alice, who has been enjoying a turn out of the cupboard now that every other sweater I'm working on is too big to carry around in my satchel. I'm well on the way to having one of the fronts finished as well; a few more episodes of Sopranos ought to take care of that.

Posted by jodi at March 10, 2008 09:55 PM | categories:  art stuff : school : sticks and string

Comments

Posted by: Jody at March 10, 2008 11:23 PM

Posted by: Jamie Grace-Duff at March 11, 2008 05:45 PM

Posted by: liz at March 12, 2008 10:19 AM

Posted by: Mandy at March 13, 2008 07:12 AM