Praeterita

Here are some things I've been assembling in my studio for a forthcoming exhibition: large scale (up to 6 feet high) and small scale models, some of which will have moving parts with the aid of tiny motors, wheels, and pulleys.

I taught a monoprint workshop at the Lillstreet Art Center in Chicago on Saturday, and as usual, the students all produced some nice looking work. Even for people who have done some form of printmaking before, they are always surprised and pleased when they pull the first print from the plexiglass plate and see the unique marks that they've made. First up, a contact (or trace) monoprint, in two colours: Then a blazing full colour additive monoprint: Now a ghost print (printed from the faint residue of ink left on the plexiglass plate after pulling the main print): Bravo, students!

I have hundreds of CDs of "classical" music, arranged alphabetically by composer on shelves in the bedroom of the Chicago apartment. My wife suggests every now and then that we move the shelves somewhere else, so I occasionally come up with schemes to justify keeping them there. My latest one is playing every CD over the course of this year, all of them in the car, because: a) I drive every day, and that's the best chance to listen to music; b) The sound system in the car is amazingly good. (In fact, I think back to the first stereo that I bought from my pocket money, in the 1970s, and the better ones that I got in my twenties, and marvel at the fact that the sound in the Toyota Corolla is better than they ever were). Note that I put the word "classical" between inverted commas. It's not a term that I particularly like, as it comes with so many assumptions, particularly from people who say they don't like that kind of music. But whatever we call it...

Last weekend, I taught a class about crafting blog content to eight participants at the Interlochen College of Creative Arts in northern Michigan. One of the participants, Brita, has spent much of the last couple of years sailing a 40 foot boat around the Caribbean. I gathered that her presence as a land-lubber at the class is only a temporary hiatus from sailing the high seas. Anyway, I asked people who took the class to send me links to any blog or blog posts they were willing to share, and Brita sent me this one, about a near miss at sea . Photo by Brita Siepker The article also contains more photos similar to this gorgeous shot of a full moon near Tobago.