so I guess I am a bit behind on all my artastic experiences, and even though it happened a couple o' weeks ago now, steamroller definitely needs to be mentioned, since it was indeed a kickass experience. so's hey, what happened is that the redline gang o resident artists got together and collectively carved up this very large piece of plywood. it was hard on the wrists to say the least and after i spent a few some hours of carving my hand hurt for like 2 weeks. so fortunately raoul had this electric hand held carver which saved the day. there was a very funny lady on box. anyway then we got together with and rented a steamroller with the fellas over at flux design and invited a bunch of people who like to do this over to 4th street to ink them up and run them over.

so the day came and it was very hot and sunny back when it was still a novelty, and we laid everything out in the street and got some decent snack food. then we inked up the plywood carvings with brayers and house paint rollers, then they got put in the queue for printing. When your turn came up, you had to put your wood on a certain spot on the street, then you had to lay your big ole piece of paper on top, then you had to put a piece of hard plastic and a rubber mat over top (heavy!). then, the steamroller runs over it (yah!) once going forward, and once going backward. then you have to take the matts off, and the plastic off, then carefully peel off the paper from the face of the plywood revealing a wonderful print suitable for hanging in the gallery, which is what we then did. but then you need to get the plywood out of the way so that the next folks with their wood in the queue can go and print their shit.

aha. and so the key to all this is cooperation. every step of the process REQUIRES cooperation. it took many people to carve the plywood, to move it into the street, put the paper on, the plastic on, the matts on, and then to take it all off and take it in the building and hanging it. it was an amazing team building experience for all the residents at redline, but also with the dudes from flux design and the other people who randomly showed up there that day.

then a band played and some dancers from danceworks danced and they auctioned off the prints in the gallery. i missed that part but i heard it was fun too. and did i mention I got to drive the steamroller?

so lately i have been working on completing a few more prints in my "gatha" series. it is amazing how you can get rusty when you don't do something for just a few weeks. my first prints were some rough going...  i forgot to put packing tape around the edge of the screen and ended up with a big mess. ugh! but then once i got rolling the rest of the screens were easy going. one important thing i recently learned in the print shop is that once you put emulsion remover on your screen, it really only needs 30 seconds to a minute before you hose it off otherwise it cements in the screen and that sucks. longer soak - not better. note to self.