Woodcut and Zumbaaaa!!!

Today was another successful day in which I woke up early (before 10am!). 

Highlights of my day:

1. delicious breakfast!
2. delicious lunch, during which I watched the  Art21 epidsode entitled "Compassion" featuring William Kentridge, Carrie Mae Weems and Doris Salcedo. I had a phase last year where I really liked Kentridge's work, but I realized that I grew up in a totally different place and had a different background and to try to work like him would be dishonest to myself, but I certainly take inspiration from it. It was interesting to hear about his work. I was most suprised by Salcedo. At first I was like "furniture? what?" but there is something to hearing the artist talk about her work and what she cared for that I found touching (for lack of better word I can think of), and, maybe because of this asphalt/geology project from highschool and geology, I thought her giant crack was fascinating.
3. Inspired to carve! After watching Art21, just felt like I HAD to carve wood or something physical in that nature. I even roamed around my garage and saw tons of scrap wood and pieces of hardware I feel like I should do something with. So I went out back, grabbed a little wood block, looked to the trees I had been admiring, and carved a little bit. I shouldn't have chosen such a small block and probably shouldn't have decided to make this a reductive block because I realized that the intricacies of the spaces between the bunches of leaves tested my patience and thus I didn't carve all that much in the end. But I decided I would make the sky color with silkcreen, because I love how smooth and clear the ink looks with screenprinting. I also realized I only have 3 inks: Gamblin brown relief, Graphic Chemical Intense black Ink, and Charbonnel snow white etching ink, so I'm either going  to have to be creative about the green and use some other kind of ink or paint, or I'm going to have to buy ink before I can move on from the sky.




Block and tree I'm working with in the background



Adding tape to my little screen for the sky.

 Of course, I messed up the mesh last year at Pyramid Atlantic by using a power hose on the weakling Speedball screen, so you can see squiggles where the threads were moved. Will most likely make my ink uneven, but I'm willing to test it out!



I have a feeling this may not print well anyway: look at the block

On another note, I have a ton of bags of concrete and cement in the shed I store my art supplies, and my dad said I can use it. I wonder if I can use concrete in a plaster mold? hmm....  I should use the concrete for something!
4. Accidental Zumba! So I went to the gym today (after I ran out of patience with the woodblock and after some errands) to do one of the workouts my awesome personal trainer gave me, and I couldn't find ankle bands. Last week I was with her when right next to the dance room and I kept looking into a Zumba class. After I was done, she said, "now go in and get the last 10 minutes of Zumba" and I had a blast! But today, doing squats outside the cardio and dance spaces, I hear music start, and I walk over to see what class it is and one person waves me in. So I decided to jump into another Zumba class! I pick up dance moves relatively fast so I wasn't too nervous about it. While I got lightheaded and dizzy at times, I figured it would be over soon and kept going as best I could!  It was fun and I felt, like all other dancing I do (like swing dancing or dancing around my room where no one can see me), like it was a sort of celebration of life through movement. Just more intense this time. Maybe I'll go again soon!