Journal entry for November 7, 2001

Today's summary: Show preparation. Shadowbox frames, business cards, self-portrait and slides, miscellany.

I've been going absolutely stark raving nuts, scrambling to get ready for this show and for the trip to L.A. (I am definitely going, got my plane tickets today). Work's crazy right now too but let's not even get into that!

There's been a lot going on and I haven't had time to write every day, so I'll just summarize the last week in today's entry.

Shadowbox frames

I spent most of last weekend sanding, staining, and oiling every single shadowbox I have on hand -- fourteen frames in all. I only actually need eight frames... but, I haven't finished all the work I want to bring to the show, and so there's no way to really know which sizes I'd need. So, now I have a full variety of frame sizes, and at least this way I know they'll all match.

After using the orbital sander for a couple of hours, my arm felt so vibratedly rubbery until the next day. Really funky feeling -- a combination between a heavy massage, and pins and needles.

Business cards

I found a good source online for full color 2-sided glossy business cards. As always my desktop publishing skills came in very handy -- I could make my own design, rather than paying them to do it for me.

I was going for something very bold and simple. Of course I love black backgrounds so... why not on my cards, too? There's really no point in putting my home address on the cards, so, that helped save space.Since these will be opposite sides of the same card, with the same info... it's reversible and it's like having two different cards. It can't hurt.

I'll give a whole stack of these to the gallery, of course.

Self-portrait, and slides

They want a picture of me and a bio for the show... and I have no good, recent photos. So, I decided to take one of myself, using the delay function on the digital camera.

There, now all my crazed stalkers know exactly what I look like! ... which is pretty much exactly the same as before, only I wear glasses now instead of contacts. Woo.

A local photo lab turns digital images into photos quite cheaply -- $7.99 for 8x10, $3.99 for 5x7, $0.69 for 4x6. Using this digital image at 300 DPI, I tried them out. Great results!

They also can turn 4x6 photos into slides, for $1.25 each. So I picked out 12 of my best sculpture images in digital format, set them up for 4x6 photo printing, and brought them to the photo lab. In about a week, I'll have 3 sets of photos and 3 sets of slides. One set of slide is for Laurie in L.A... the other two sets of slides/photos will come with me to L.A. as I cruise around galleries. I don't want to annoy anybody by saying "Look at my slides! Now!", but it can't hurt to have them with me.

Miscellany

I've been working on new specimens, making plane/car reservations, making arrangements to stay with my friend Diana from WetCanvas who lives in L.A., talking to my cousin who also lives in L.A., talking to the gallery, talking to UPS about how to ship this dangerous-looking stuff without it bothering their package security inspectors... um... let's see, what else? I guess that's most of it, in terms of the show-related aspects of my life.

I should send out my very first artist's update to my mailing list soon, to tell them about the show. There's a zillion other things to do, too. What fun!