To Do

Suddenly my To-do list went from short and sweet – maybe even a bit boring – to a small mountain pile of plans.  This is not too bad, really. There are still no deadlines here. I am being good about that – disallowing them that is. But I do want to get moving on the ideas I am excited about. The only real obstacle, if I can even call it that, is finishing up projects that I’ve already started. Like, The Spark.

This little book project has become a little pest, it has – hanging me up for far too long. I mean, I have been doing it leisurely and all. I didn’t want to rush it and stress myself out even though it would’ve been nice for them to be finished before the MOAH show. But Alas, that was not to be.

Many reasons came into play, like having to do the entire book all over again – from scratch! There were too many pages and I didn’t like all the details. Then, the paper was too thick. The book wouldn’t close because it’s so small to have all the pages in the thick Moab fine art paper. And before that, I had to take my high-end Epson printer into the shop — twice! Who knew this thing would become such an issue? It’s not even so spectacular of a thing. Really, not to put it down. It’s going to be cool, but I’ve made more impressive Artist’s books in my day. In fact, if this thing was more handmade than digital, I probably wouldn’t be having these issues!

There’s also the fact that I’ve been dragging my feet. It’s not like I wake up and work on this every day. I was going through a lot of depression as you all know. Yesterday, when I started writing this very blog post, I wrote a whole paragraph about how my depression was finally starting to lift. Then, about an hour later, everything just took a fucking nose dive. I swear, I was doing really well for a good week there! I don’t exactly know what set it off, but it was pretty horrible. However, what was different was that I was able to recover quicker than usual. I’ll look at that as a positive.

What most likely set it off is the fact that my sleep has been shit lately. I haven’t been able to get my eight hours – in a row. I can get about five or six, and it’s been a feat even getting to six. I have to take naps during the day – if I can, that is.

Okay, anyway, back to this book project. I’d really like to finish this edition of  20 as soon as possible. Twenty is a lot! There’s really no difference between 20, 50, or whatever. Once you decide to make more than 10 books, it’s a bear. Getting to the first one is a trick too and that took forever. Even deciding on how I wanted to bind it.

It’s sort of an inside-out binding, a mixture of a long stitch and a three station pamphlet stitch. Sounds fancier than it is. I just wanted the tie to be on the outside. I mean, I think. Maybe I’m still on the fence about that. Maybe I’m on the fence about the purple thread too. At least the first book is together. The first book that won’t be part of the edition though. That’s just the way it goes. The only time I didn’t do that was when I made Houses. Every last scrap of materials and effort became part of that edition. For the first Spark I completed, I’ll name it the Hors d’Commerce copy and mark it 1/1, which means it’s like a gallery copy that isn’t meant for sale. The Frenchy stuff isn’t supposed to sound pretentious. It just comes from traditional editioning in printmaking.

Today I’m still printing pages (almost done) and chopping the sheets on my cutting board. In fact, I started super early this morning because of how hot it’s been lately. It’s been so hot here, you can fry up some eggs on yo mama’s backside. Even at 5:30 AM the studio was HOT! I’m not kidding. I had to run the AC in there for 20 minutes before I could work in there. It made the place nice and cool.

But then of course, another unfinished project lives in there (my studio/the garage) that started staring me down: The Turtle House. And this is what I mean about getting The Spark book done first – so I can work on this painting! I really want to. I want to bring it into my nice air conditioned house and work on it on my drafting table. I’ve been looking forward to that since I got the table.

Plus, Craig called me and wanted new work. He didn’t give me a show date or anything, but he wants me to start working on new stuff. I’ve had a few mock-ups sitting in my files – both digital and physical. All my ideas begin drawn with my hand, but then I like to scan them into my computer so I can play with them in Photoshop. It causes me to be more strategic with colors and floats me out of the box.

I sent some of these preliminary files to Craig, but I don’t think anyone but me can see what I see. Not until they exist anyway. Craig seemed to like them regardless of their stage.

Some of my ideas come straight out of my personal sketchbooks, so it’s all very raw and will be painted as loose as possible. Some will be two-paneled with words, but the words won’t be legible really.

There’s a few others, but I’ll save them for another time. I think by tomorrow morning I can get the rest of the page sheets printed and cut. It almost seems too good to be true. Whew.

 

2 thoughts on “To Do

  1. clruane July 11, 2017 / 5:57 pm

    Carol, I am curious to see your Turtle House develop. A family member who lives near a canyon in Yorba Linda (Orange County area) had a huge tortious walk into their yard thirsty and hungry. After food and water it returned to the canyon yet shows up every now and then. I am guess it has its own home but not able to locate what else it needs due to development. Knowing they live a long time I fear for its future. So the concern for an appropriate “Home” for the tortoise has been on my worry-list.

    • Carol Es July 14, 2017 / 8:55 am

      I will definitely keep you updated on the Turtle House. I am excited to get to it after I work on these books, but I am also nervous about it too. It’s one of those paintings I’ve been thinking about so long that I’m scared to ruin.

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