The A of M: Day 4

Holy Moley. I made it through Day 4 of The Architecture of Memory, the class I'm taking at the Oregon College of Art and Craft. I started the day feeling a little weary after four full days of making art, but I reworked some of my pieces and felt satisfied by the end of the day.

Here is Pat Wheeler, our gentle and wise instructor, demonstrating some techniques to Stephanie and then to Stephanie and Linda.

I mentioned in my last post that I decided to ditch my little 8x8 board and yesterday I smeared a fresh layer of compound over the whole affair before I left for the day. Today I started playing with the fresh surface and as of 4:00 today, here is the revamped piece (with more tinkering to be done in the morning).

I did complete one piece, the one that Amy wants. I've scribed into the surface a line from a book written by Kim Stafford, so I guess it will be the title of the piece: Coming up on the other side. I was trying to figure out what words I wanted to write and Pat had me read a short essay in Kim's book. Since I wanted the quote to reflect all that Amy is balancing and doing right now, when I read that snippet of a sentence, I knew what words I would include in my piece. As soon as the words were inscribed, I added a thin layer of cold wax medium to the whole work to seal it and to bring out the deep, rich colors.

My other daughter, Melissa, said she was going to look at my blog tonight so she could figure out which piece she wanted dibs on. When I told Howard that, he said, "What a minute, don't I get a choice?" I'm happy to be so popular with my family!

Okay, so here is a shot of my pieces (hanging on the wall, no less), about mid-day:

At the end of the day, here's the gang--a couple of the pieces have some wall compound added in and will be dealt with in the morning.