MiT book...so close yet so far!

OK, I trimmed all the paper for senior #4's wrap/container, glued one up, and I'm not sure that I like it! Of course, I have all 20 of them trimmed, scored, and folded already. And NOW I decide that I'm not sure I like it.

So here's my problem—the book is a palm leaf book, which means there will be a string/ribbon/thread of some sort for the binding itself. At each end of the string will be a mah jongg tile bead. To close the book, you wrap the string around the pages, which in this case are the laminated prints.

When closed, the book will have its lumps/bumps/beads and will need a loose fitting container. And since the binding itself has a string/ribbon/thread already, I don't want to use another string/ribbon/thread for the container for closure, so the container was designed to have a flap that was heavy enough that it would just lie down flat and stay closed. I'm not a box maker, so I designed something that was more or less like an envelope, only 3 dimensional.

And the important aspects do work, ie, the flap does stay closed and the book fits loosely, but maybe a bit TOO loosely. I don't know. It just feels sort of sloppy.

I just went back and looked at it again, and it may not be so bad as I was thinking. Maybe after I get some sleep it will look much better tomorrow.

In the mean time, here's the graphics for the cover. It's supposed to look like the white dragon tile (aka the soap tile), only with her name in it:



After a bit of research, I saw that the white dragon tile (basically a box) can vary quite a bit from set to set. Some of them are very fancy. So I made my a little on the fancy side.

MiT book, the final stretch

I'm almost going to make my end of the month deadline for this book! Not too bad considering I took 4 days off to go to the Steens couple of weeks ago. Finished printing the title page and the colophon page (pictures tomorrow); started trimming and folding the container. That will need to be printed & glued as well. I should be finished by Wed. Then the appt with the photographer on Thursday morning. And, although I've been working hard on it, I wasn't stressed out over it; I went to the Steens, and I did a few other things. So all in all, I can't complain.

Also picked up more supplies for the next book, which I will get started once I get a few things done for Portland Open Studios, coming up in less than 2 weeks. Since I've hardly painted this year, I want to make the books a bigger part of the weekends, especially the Relay Replay books. I hope to have some brochures or even just handouts done by then.

Other projects that need tending to

Believe it or not, I actually have other things that I do besides working on my Relay Replay books! So some of them got dealt with this weekend.

I interviewed Laura Russell for a profile on the Portland Open Studios blog. She participated in Portland Open Studios a few years back and has said that the event helped her get started in Portland and ultimately, helped her start her gallery, 23 Sandy. So that sounded like a good story, although I probably won't run it until after the event in mid-October. And actually, I have another artist that I'd like to interview before the event, but I'm running out of time here.

Then we (Roslyn, a different Laura, and me) went out to Hillsboro to check out the gallery at Glenn & Viola Walters Cultural Center for our Intersect/Parallel exhibit in Dec/Jan. There will be 5 of us in the show, all software/hardware engineers and artists. There's a sculptor, a photographer, 2 painters, and 2 book artists (I'm the one in 2 media).

And today, we (Shelley, Kindra, and me) went out to Milepost 5 to see the 20+ artists of PAO at that location. They have some really wonderful artists, although the traffic was pretty slow while we were there. That was the only location we were going to visit, and one of the artists said that many people said that. So some people might've had a pretty quiet weekend.

And no, we didn't wear disguises!

Relay Replay Press

I've been thinking about this a lot for the last couple of weeks—how to continue the project with seniors after this year. My RACC grant was for 2008 and covered my working with 4 seniors. If you've been following this blog, you'll know that it's been a pretty incredible experience, although at times pretty frustrating, especially at the beginning.

When I mentioned to the Good Prince that I'm considering starting a press just to work with seniors with dementia, he was surprised that I'd do that, considering the amount of frustrations I've had. However, given that I think it's just such a fabulous idea, and now that I've figured out some of the kinks of the project, I think going forward things will be better. And most of all, it's so worth doing.

Now that I know I need to work closely with families and to institute limits (both time & material), I think I can manage it better. In my projects this year, I also did set limits, but because I was mostly working directly with the seniors (who couldn't remember those limits), my limits went out the door with the first 2 seniors. After that, it didn't seem fair to limit the subsequent seniors to my original caps, so I just kind of gave up on that.

So anyhow, here's my thinking on establishing the Relay Replay Press (I liked the show title so much I've decided to use it for the press name):

Relay Replay Press 1.0

Mission

Using a variety of media, work with senior citizens at various stages of memory loss to create artists books.

2009 Goals

1. Keep the momentum going, but work with just 2 seniors for the year instead of 4 (I need to paint & garden!)

2. Work with families directly rather than with a facility. Work with the Alzheimer's Association.

3. Continue to use the gocco, along with painting and collage, as the primary media. (I think there's enough stockpile gocco supplies to do this.)

4. At least have the materials cost be paid for, either by the families or through donations. Would like to have some of my time paid for, if at all possible.

5. Consider applying for grants for late 2009 and 2010.

2010 Goals

1. Investigate solar plate and table top etching press as alternatives to gocco.

2. Work with 2 seniors for the year.

3. Evaluate the long term viability of the press as a non-profit organization.

4. Get serious about the funding issue (ie, pay for my time, in addition to materials).

5. Evaluate whether to expand the press by involving other artists, volunteers, etc.

2011 and Beyond

Of course, this completely depends on how it goes in 2009 and 2010, but I can see this growing way beyond what I can do myself, ie, becoming a non-profit with a board, executive director, and volunteers. Perhaps similar to the IPRC model or the P:EAR model, but focused on the elderly, and each senior is matched with an artist to work one on one.

Need to Research

For the 4 books I'm doing in 2008, I'm keeping 13 copies of the books (each senior gets 7), with the idea that there's a market for them in library collections and that I'd be able to sell them.

This is not yet a proven thesis, but if there is a market for the books, that would be a source of funding.

But if there is no market for these books, then there's no point in producing more books than the seniors and their families will want. That will help reduce the materials cost and also amount of time required.

If I Get Really Ambitious

Jordan Schnitzer, of the Schnitzer clan, is a big printmaking fan. Has a print collection, and also sits on the board of Rose Schnitzer Manor (where I've been working with the seniors). So he's where printmaking and the elderly are intersecting! Maybe I should see if he'll fund it, back the non-profit, and hey, why not, start a company to continue manufacturing gocco supplies!?

MiT book, stalling for time

OK, I've been having a hard time coming up with words for this book. Part of the issue was that senior #4 was so very quiet! Her daughter was so helpful in getting this project completed—she brought over albums, documents, all kinds of things, and helped her mom choose what to print. But because the daughter was so engaging and so involved, I think my senior kind of sat back and just quietly printed. She & I didn't interact in the same ways that I interacted with the other seniors. On the other hand, she never would've completed the project had her daughter not been involved.

So in the mean time, at a loss for words (haha), I decided to just start adding more texture to my side of the prints. Not sure that you can tell the difference in the before (left) and after (right) pictures. The ones on the right have obviously been trimmed down to size and corners rounded (yay, corner rounder!). But they also have had blobs of white added to them randomly:



But I just thought of something—maybe I should not have any words, given that we didn't really have any conversations?

Here's another set. I've overprinted all 16 sets:

MiT book, corner rounder!

OK, so my senior's prints have all been attached to my prints. Here's the side of the senior's prints:



My side (I'll be adding text to my side still, but wanted to trim them up to their final size before I print the text). The top left blank page will have the title and the bottom right blank page will have the colophon:



Ta dah! The corner rounder!

I'm READY!! Part III

Thanks to Michael5000 for reminding me of my other fine qualifications:

Very impressive.

We should add, don't you have a Grammy or something? For the early heavy metal hit "Smoke on the Water," right? Or am I confusing you with someone else?

Also, let's not forget the legs!

Chicken Hat/Fingerstothebone 2008!!!

Ah, Chicken Hat/Fingers, that's a dream ticket, but don't you think I should be on top?

No, it was not a Grammy, it was the EMMY, for this heavy metal baby which weighed in at 45lb. I see now it's available on Ebay...why, back in the days...

And no, lets not forget about the legs! They're definitely better than Sarah's. I noticed that she has quite the daikon legs; she really should do pantsuits instead.

This 'n that

Today didn't quite turn out to be as I anticipated, and I'm pretty sure I won't finish laminating the prints tomorrow.

It was kind of a weird day though—I showed up at 11am for my appt w/ my trainer, only to see her working with someone else for another half hour. Turns out, she had me down at 11:30am. OK. Then I got home and there was a msg from the dentist, saying that I had an appt tomorrow at 10:20am, but I clearly remembered that my appt was at 9:20am. So I checked my calendar...yup, I wrote down 11am for the appt w/ the trainer, and 9:20am for the dentist.

Then I checked the appt slips that they gave me and, aha!, I was NOT wrong. The trainer wrote 11am on the appt slip she gave me, and the dentist's office manager wrote down 9:20am on the slip she gave me.

I feel so vindicated.

But all that is neither here nor there.

Doug and I went down to look at the neighborhood coffee shop that we'll have a little holiday show at this December. Then I went on down to PDX Contemporary where there was a postcard writing event—some 40, 50 women showed up to write postcards to undecided women voters to persuade them to vote for Obama. I was really impressed with the turnout, but it is hard for me to imagine how anyone can be undecided for this election.

While I was out and about, I also checked Art Media, Utrecht's, and Oblation for a teflon coated bone folder (as suggested by Dr. Russ), but there doesn't seem to be one in Portland!

But back to the election

Here's a campaign to donate money to Planned Parenthood in Sarah Palin's name:

https://secure.ga0.org/02/pp10000_inhonor

Use the menu in the left column and select Honorary or Memorial Donations. This will change the donation application, where you can fill in the address to let PP know where to send the "in Sarah Palin's honor" card.

I got this address off the McCain website contact page:

John McCain 2008
P.O. Box 16118
Arlington, VA 22215

You can split up your donations into smaller chunks to generate more cards sent to McCain (instead of 1 $100 donation, do 10 $10 ones).

Even more election stuff

Apparently, there was an anti-Palin rally in Anchorage that drew a huge crowd. A friend sent 20+ pictures, here are a few to share. I did not see a credit for these photos, but will add if I find out:

MiT book, laminating day 2

So here's the process of laminating my senior's prints to my prints.

1. Here's the roll of Gudy O. As it's unfurled, the corners want to roll up, so here I've tacked down 1 print in each corner to keep it flat:



2. After I place 3 more prints across the roll, I use an Xacto knife to slice the prints off the roll. The roll is slightly wider than 5 prints, so I get a bit leftover, which I'm saving, but of course:



3. I flip each print over and use the bone folder to press the adhesive to the print. This is the bone of 'fingerstothebone':



4. Then I remove the silicon release paper from my senior's print, now with the adhesive on the backside, and attach the senior's print to my print, and bone that down too:



5. The pile of silicon release paper...surely I'll find a use for these for some project or other:



Do the math again: laminated 104 prints in 3.75 hrs today = 27.7/hr. Not bad. 189 prints to go = 6.8 hrs! I'll be done by Tuesday for sure.

MiT book, laminating day 1

OY! I'm so glad I decided to get the backup adhesive!

A couple of weeks ago, I complained (oops, there I go again) about not being able to spend my money when I was trying to buy some Duromount. And after 4 days of leaving them messages, I finally was able to place my order. The only trouble was, they couldn't ship it out for another week, and it would be another week before it would arrive, which would put me on next Thursday, Sept 25.

I went ahead and placed the order, but decided that I didn't have that much time to sit around and wait, so I also purchased 2 rolls of Gudy O from Talas, which arrived yesterday.

I started laminating senior #4's prints to the mah jongg 'tiles' that I've been printing. So here's the math—16 images x 21 copies each = 336 sheets to laminate. It took me 2.25 hours to do the first 24...which gives me 31.5 hours to laminate all 336 sheets! Wow, I'd be laminating all week, even discounting the 2.25 hours I've already done.

After a little rest, I went back at it, and it took me 45 minutes to laminate the next 19, I got a system going, or I just got scared into working much faster...that brings the total down to about 11.5 hours, discounting the first 24 I'd already done. Much, much better. I'd just be laminating for the next couple of days.

Although I might have to take a break, boning the sheets down to the laminate is proving to be rather hard on my forearm, elbow, and fingers.

MiT, 5 more hands

The artwork for three more of the '8' tiles:



The two flower tiles, plus title and colophon:



The hands printed (plus the one that didn't get its picture taken last time):



And, here we are, practically the end of September already, and I picked another big bowl of strawberries. I had actually gone out with the little bowl first, thinking that was plenty big. But I was wrong:



And Random Movie: Burn After Reading. It was probably my least favorite of the Coen brothers' movies I've seen.

Steens 2008!

We didn't quite get enough of the Steens last year (see this and this), so we went back again.

Actually, one of the people we met last year (at the hotel) was quite the story teller, and he mentioned watching the moon rise over the Alvord Desert. So the Good Prince and I invited a few friends and the whole gang, plus a couple of chicken hats, headed east for the Moon Festival.

This was hand-held at 1/60:



(Disclaimer—bad compression by blogger, not by me.)

On the drive from Frenchglen to Diamond:



Around Diamond Craters loop:



Also between Frenchglen and Diamond:



Hmm...can't remember exactly where this was, but still around Diamond (population 5):

I'm READY!! Part II

Although I seem to have some grassroots support for my candidacy, Michael5000 has expressed doubts on how much executive experience I have.

Well, let me assure everyone that I have plenty.

OK, on to the next item on the agenda. As everyone knows, we here in America have been suffering from Gocco supply shortages. We must stop being held hostages to Japan. If necessary, I will not hesitate to launch military action against Japan to secure a continuous flow of Gocco supplies. I won't blink.

In terms of foreign policy, I do know a thing or two about Japan—I mean, Portland has direct flights to Tokyo AND I was once invited to do Gocco demos at PDX to celebrate the inauguration of the direct flights! And further more, I've been to China a couple of times, Japan, Korea, Europe a few times. I've even been to the Middle East! Heck, I was born in a foreign country, that should give me some extra special foreign policy cred. Oh, that little detail about having to be US born to be president, well, I'll make sure that's changed faster than you can blink.

And, at 48, I clearly have 4 more years of essential experiences but still be young enough to NOT have a big fat useless resume. And young enough to be kind of babe-ish, if I keep my hair washed.

Although I've never met any heads of state, I did see the Pope once. Really close, like I was within 10 feet of the Popemobile. And he's kind of like a head of state. Isn't he?

If elected, I won't forget my friends. For starters, Michael5000 can be the Secretary of Quizzes (but only if he shows deference and gives me the Gold Star every time). I'm open to lobbying for all other positions. (Hint, hint.)

So, me thinks I is plenty qualified.

MiT, 9 hands

Here are 2 more of the B5 gocco screens I burnt today. This one 'reads' 0, 8, and 0.



This one reads 8, 8, 8. And yes, the middle hand is touching the other 2 hands. I'll deal with this when I print.



Here I'm printing the left hand. I've taped off the middle hand where the two hands touch. I use white paper tape, or artist's tape, whichever I happen to have on hand. Then I use the foam block on top of the tape. This works amazingly well most of the time. Once in a while, some ink does start to seep through underneath the white paper tape, and in this situation, where the 2 images are actually touching, it does require further intervention.

And the ink did start to seep under the white paper tape today, so I cut another piece of white paper tape, shaped it so that it approximated the line between the 2 hands, and taped that to the emulsion side. And that took care of the problem.



So, the 4 '8's of the same suit. The one on the left and the two on the right were the ones on the same gocco screen above, and touching each other. And here they are, printed separately, no worse for their hand touching.



And the '2008', '2' and '8' from the same suit, and white dragons in place of the '0's.



And here they are, all on the drying rack.



I do have one more hand printed, but it's waiting for it's other buddies before it gets its picture taken.

That, was more or less the whole day.

I'm READY!!!

Pick me! Pick Me! I is ready to be the VP!

Sorry, we interrupt this studio diary to bring you some complaints. BIG ONES.

I caught bits of the Sarah Palin interview this afternoon, and after a minute or so, I was so embarrassed for her that I couldn't take it anymore. I turned the radio off. I could do as well as that, and maybe even better, especially after a whole week of coaching. I had been looking forward to the debates, but now I'm not so sure. It might be way too painful (palinful?).

She made W look good. How sad is that?

But, on a more cheery front, I finally got started on the graphics for senior #4's book, in between working on various Portland Open Studios duties. Here are 3 'hands' for a 2008 winning American mah jongg hand:



I can fit 3 onto a large gocco screen (B5), so will need 5 screens to do all 14 tiles/hands.

Senior #4's daughter sent me a lot of information about American mah jongg. Each year, the Mah Jongg League publishes a booklet that contains all the winning hands for the year (and they change every year). And I guess each year, they have winning hands that basically 'spell out' the year's number. For example, here's a winning hand for 2008:

FF 2008 8888 8888

Where the 'F's are the flower tiles; then each of the sets of 4 numbers must be in the same suit, except for '0', as there are no '0' in Mah Jongg tiles, so they are replaced with the white dragons.

So in this first screen I've just burnt, I have 2 '8's from 2 different suits, and a '2'.

The Grand Exhibition

OK, Margaret's words, not mine. But, we did finalize on all the words for the exhibit today. This is for the book project with the seniors.

I've been calling it "MiT," which stands for Moment in Time; that was my original project name when I applied for the grant.

I never did care for that name though. So this is the John Wilson Special Collections exhibit title, subtitle, and write-up (thanks to Jim Carmin, the JWSC library who helped put it together):

Relay/Replay: Artist’s Books that Illuminate the Creative Lives of the Elderly

November 15 – December 31, 2008

Portland artist Shu-Ju Wang spent eight months working with four seniors at various stages of memory loss. Through conversation, painting, printmaking, and collage, she engaged these delightful individuals; together they created artwork that became the foundation to this collection of artist's books. Shu-Ju has been making artist’s books using the Print Gocco for 10 years, and this collection draws heavily on her skills as a Gocco printer and book maker.

Also, please join us in the John Wilson Special Collections on Saturday, December 6, 2008 at 1:00 PM for an informal talk by the artist about this project (which was funded in part by the Regional Arts & Culture Council).

For more information contact Jim Carmin, John Wilson Special Collections Librarian at 503-988-6287; or jimc@multcolib.org.

---------

Outside of that, I've been busy catching up on Portland Open Studios work for a couple of days. Finally finished the profile I've been working on for the last 2 months on Shelley Hershberger, another artist. That should go up on the Portland Open Studios blog on Saturday.

Random Movie of the week: Brideshead Revisited. Although it was a fine movie, it was clear that there was so much more going on than could really be condensed into a 2+ hour movie.

MiT...will anyone take my money?

I tell ya, I didn't know it would be this hard to spend some money on art supplies!

On Saturday, I did my homework and figured out what I needed to buy for senior #4's book. And today, I set about making phone calls. One place, an 800 number, never answered their phone, the whole day; I left a message, they never called back. It is a reputable place, since other artists have purchased from them...so why don't they like me!? Sniff.

The 2nd place actually called me back at 7am (I left a message on Saturday), but of course we were dead to the world and never even heard the phone ring. They left a message. When I called back, I discovered that I needed to provide my zip code so that the proper sales person can call me back. OK, fine, I gave them all the information they wanted. Then nobody called me back. Wah!

I'm just the lonely practically senior citizen artist waiting for the phone to ring, and they won't call me back.

Oops, is that complaining?

On the bright side, I delivered Marion's books to her today, and she was really pleased with them, so that was good. At first, she was alarmed that her name was on the cover (see photos here), she thought people would think she was bragging. But when I told her that everybody's books will have their names on them, then she was ok with that.

Also finished goccoing the textures on the Rives BFK this afternoon. I should be able to start working on the actual images tomorrow.

MiT book, "texturizing"

This was a very low energy day. For some reason, I really just didn't want to do anything, and not much was accomplished for most of the day, except for sitting around and reading the paper.

But I suddenly got a burst of energy after 7pm, and so work continued.

I want to use the mahjongg theme for my 4th senior's book, and also because all of her prints were photo-based and very cleanly printed, I want to create some contrast with the images I print. So here's the plan: laminate the heavier Rives BFK to her prints which are on Rives Lightweight. On the BFK, I will print a set of mahjongg related images; I want these to have the antique patina look of those old bone mahjongg tiles.

To achieve that, I put down 2 layers, using the same 2 open screens that I used for these two prints.

On the left, the first layer printed with some reddish brown ink daubed on the open screen with a palette knife, and printed very lightly. On the right, the 2nd layer printed with the mustard yellow mixed with white; this was printed using a different open screen which was created by flashing against a black output from my laser printer, and THEN some of the emulsion completely removed by sticking some scotch tape on there and peeling the emulsion off. So you have some areas of very dense ink and areas of lighter ink elsewhere. That's perhaps the most obvious on the upper right, where you can see the shape of a piece of scotch tape.

Each press yielded a slightly different and somewhat unpredictable result, which is just fine for my purposes here. I'm only about 1/3 way finished printing these. The 3rd layer will then consist of various mahjongg related images.



I've been thinking about changing my hair...it's been long and straight for many years now, and I've been thinking of going shorter and wavy. I found this picture of Annette Benning with short wavy hair (isn't she a cutie pie)—



And stuck a picture of yours truly in there (don't look too closely, it's a sloppy photoshop job)—



But blond hair just makes me look Japanese, so I took the blond out (along with some color from her right ear)—



And although I'd love to have silvery hair, I don't think that's quite in the cards for me either. So here's a somewhat more "likely" rendition. "Likely" in quotes because it's really much more likely that I'll wear it limp and unwashed, and not the stylish version you see here—



You can compare this new look to that of my James McAvoy impersonation here.

Procurement for senior #4's book

What a fancy word for shopping!

Shopping for work, of course, but still shopping.

After a couple of days of trying different things, and finally deciding on a direction for senior #4's book, I spent the day PROCURING. That's serious business. Of course, this being the weekend, I couldn't actually buy everything, but come Monday, I'm ready.

So I'm getting this corner rounder. I found them online, and also on ebay, but realized that this company (mybinding.com) was in Hillsboro. So if they have a storefront, I hope to just pick one up on Monday.

Then I'm getting some (actually, a lot, they come in 150 or 300 feet rolls) Duromount R, an archival dry mounting adhesive, to laminate each of her prints to a heavier backing (in this case, Rives BFK, 100 sheets from Daniel Smith just arrived).

And I did managed to buy some mah jongg tile beads. Although they were 2 short of the 20 large ones I needed, I did get 26 of the smaller ones. Then I found 2 more larger ones (but not quite as large as 25mm) at the Village Bead Shop, so I'm set on the mah jongg beads.

Started trimming paper for the book, but boy, when you make a mistake on those stack cutters, you screw up BIG! After I mis-cut (is that a word?) 20 sheets of paper, I gave up for the night. Good thing about paper is that, you can always use them for another project.

MiT book, "Marion" is completed!

Yay!

Although I had to make a 2nd screen for the cover image. The original image I made was too small; and also, it was just the text which I decided I didn't like. Plus—now this was a gocco problem that I had not run into before, because I hadn't tried this before—but I had flashed a small screen (B6), with the text "Marion" on the bottom. Now notice that this book has hard covers. So as I pressed down, the frame that holds the screen pressed down on the hard cover itself and the screen never even made contact! I could print it if I moved the whole cover up so the frame did not come in contact, but then the name would be way on the bottom of the cover.

It was a good thing that I had one extra book that I could spare! So yes, senior #1's name is Marion. This was the 2nd screen I made, with the soft blue-gray background and "Marion" as a negative image.



Title page, Family Picnic.



A couple of the inside pages:





Reproductions of her watercolors. These are slightly reduced from their original size.



What is this, you ask. Well, I'm so proud of myself that I just have to show off. These are the table top parts from those tv dinner tables. These were hand-me-downs from someone else, and we never had a use for them.

A few years ago, I got this bright idea to disassemble them and, with a little modification, use the legs to build print display racks, which I did. And they've been very useful! So these are the leftover table tops which had been leaning up against the wall. And last night, I figured out that I could use them as presses after gluing text blocks, covers, whatever. Just put a few bricks on top, and they're good to go!

And not having much time to dawdle, I've started experimenting with senior #4's book. They're drying in the press now!

MiT book, all done with gluing for now

For better or worse, I'm finished with the gluing part for senior #1's book.

For better, because I'm done.

For worse, because things are not all squared up! I was pretty frustrated with that, and finally just decided to live with it.

From the trouble I had with printing on long strips through the the inkjet printer, to alignment problems with the stack cutter, it was just endless.

Otherwise, caught up on a lot of Portland Open Studios web site updates. Although I still have an artist profile that I need to write up. Did the interview back in June and never wrote it up!

MiT book...I sure use a lot of glue

That was what I did today. Gluing. Gluing the cover sheets to the cover boards. Gluing the filler sheets on the inside covers. And now I'm out of glue. Will continue gluing tomorrow, after I get more glue.

On the positive side, I examined the covers, and only 2 were bad as far as pva seepage goes. And I have enough good ones for the text blocks. That's good news in that I wanted to keep the covers pretty clean and uncluttered, as the inside is pretty minimalist. So I can just print my senior #1's name on the cover, as I originally planned.

The Random Movie: Tell No One, a French thriller. A complicated plot but very well put together. There weren't any of those head-scratching moments of what-just-happened? Also saw Man on Wire a few weeks back, about the people that strung a cable between the twin towers back in the 70's and the guy that walked across. It was terrific!