Embrace Technology: Future Editor

Sketchbook goodness. Just a little image that's been kickin' around. It seems to be an editorial comment, but, not really. Just a brief, passing thought on automation. Well, ok then! I guess it IS an editorial comment. Power to the pencil- right on!

Pity the Groundhog, For He Labors On February 1st...

So, today was Groundhog Day. As a Pennsylvania gal, I take a certain amount of pride in the fact that Punxsutawney Phil is our guy, and ours alone. But it's an awful lot of pressure on a hapless rodent. I can't help but imagine the pre-game jitters. So I did. Imagine them, I mean.

In this cover for Spider magazine a couple of years ago we see Phil in the wee hours, trying, rather desperately, to divine what may be. And, obviously, he's deadlining (that's a nod to my profession, for sure).

This was the February/March issue. The shamrocks on the tablecloth are a reference to March. The pressure's off by then and Phil can go back to relaxing. And randomly destroying people's gardens. Spring is (somewhere) around the corner. He knows that.

Grad Crits, Revisited

At semester's end, students and faculty gather together to reflect, ponder, critique, kick some serious ass and, apparently, sometimes confuse the graduate students. It's an entirely useful process, but also difficult and a rite of passage. If they survive they get to come back in the spring for more!

For my current UConn colleagues, and our students... can you find yourselves here?

Fuzzy Man

Calvin, our itinerant Cairn Terrier for these last 14.5 years, is "The Fuzzy Man" at our house. He's ever cheerful, a lover of life, a true companion. He never asks for much. Instead, he holds up his end of the bargain- companion, watchdog, friendly boy, kibble aficionado.

He is much older now. And, in passing, has had his share of health crises in the last year or so. Tonight was no exception. Rushed again to our ever-compassionate vet practice, at night, they set him right, to some degree. We continue to nurse him at home. So, as I lay with him on the kitchen floor (he, on a comfy bed, me on a smelly old carpet scrap next to him) I want to say, "Here's to you, Calvin. The Fuzzy Man. The Maitre d' of 147 Mansfield Road (houseguests, you know what I'm talkin' about))." God bless you.

Grad Crits, Midterm, Fall 2013

A subjective record of the conversations/interactions/trajectories of our MFA in Art crits. It's true:
1. There was no heat (brrrr)
2. There was coffee
3. There was art
4. Artists (faculty and students) really do work hard (crits are an all-day Saturday event)

Dr. Richard Shiff- Modernist

I enjoyed his lecture at the recent National Council of Arts Administrators conference in Richmond, VA (VCU, host). 9/24-9/28/13. So, he ended up in my sketchbook.

That's some serious art nerd awesomesauce, right there!

From the UT Austin website: "Richard Shiff is Effie Marie Cain Regents Chair in Art at The University of Texas at Austin, where he directs the Center for the Study of Modernism. His scholarly interests range broadly across the field of modern and contemporary art."

http://www.utexas.edu/finearts/aah/about/people/richard-shiff

Ghost Leaves

 I always love the ghost images that fallen leaves make this time of year on concrete walkways. These images are progressive- some taken during the day, some at night. Traveling between the Art Building and the William J. Benton Museum of Art on the University of Connecticut campus, pausing to take in these ephemeral moments is a nice "anti-venom" to the blah, blah, blah of time spent in depressing meetings (otherwise known as "time out of my life that I can't ever get back"). There is something about these "leaves/not leaves" that always interests me...