Break Week 16
You know, 16 weeks (and counting) of time off between semesters feels a tad long. Weird, I know. Every kid growing up looks forward to Summer with glee. Time without school! Yay!
And yet I sit here thinking I really miss classes. Studio classes, at least. I’m not sure if I am looking forward to my last academic class (Cultural Theory) or not. That remains to be determined.
In any case, as my regular readers know, I’ve been busy doing volunteer work in the shop at school. That lets me use my time for good, as opposed to doing nothing. And this past week a couple of projects finally got to completion points.
First up, the lightboard is as done as it can be for now:
On the left you see the assembled frame, without the glass. On the right you see the LED strips, properly spliced and prepped for eventual installation. The reason the glass is not installed is that the studio where this thing will live is not done yet, and won’t be for a few months. And even worse, the studio where it will live does not have a working elevator going to the floor it is on. (Yes, I know. Very odd. But it’s an old building and I am not asking questions.) So, rather than try to carry this thing up at least half a flight of stairs with 80 pounds of glass on it, we’re leaving the glass off until the frame is moved into the studio itself. We’ll then install the glass in situ, and all will be well. We hope.
I’m afraid the other projects I’ve been working on are less exciting, and I didn’t even take pictures.
I added wheels to the bottom of the welding table used for oxy-actelyene welding, and cleaned up some metal stock that was in the way on the floor of the shop. I’ve partly designed another project (the double sided projection screen mentioned previously) but we’ve set that aside for the moment to work on other things. We did some serious clean up of the wood and metal storage area, to make access easier. We also did a lot of odd things, like figure out where to have new power and air line drops installed, and ponder the rather disastrous state of the existing jointer, which desperately needs replacement. And finally, as of yesterday I’ve been revising a set of racks that hold large rollers for applying ink to plates in the print studio. That project isn’t done yet, but good progress was made and it will get finished up when I am back in the shop.
But that’s at least a week away. The shop manager is taking some down time to work on a floor in his own home, so I have at least all of the coming week off. With luck I will make art here at home during that time.
We’ll see.
Honestly, that’s the end of the excitement from this past week. I must admit that adjusting to doing a lot of physical work for that many hours a day has been “entertaining.” It’s probably good that I am doing this now rather than getting slammed by that adjustment when classes start up again.
And classes will be demanding. Advanced Ceramics will be a full time job, and Public Art will be a big time consumer as well. I expect to be on campus seven days a week starting very soon as a result of just those two classes. Somehow, though, I will have to squeeze in the reading and writing needed for the previously mentioned Cultural Theory class as well. All of which starts in almost exactly a month.
So there you have it. Sorry this is a short post. I hope there is more of interest next week.