Two steps forward, one step back

I've been trimming paper for days. This is for senior #2's book. I finally chose a paper (Nepal Light). I chose it because it's fairly lightweight, and it's neutral in color and I know I can gocco print on it pretty well. Lightweight is necessary because the folding required to make the pages look like envelopes creates a fairly thick page, so I want to start with a really light paper.

The disadvantage is that the paper is handmade and has very irregular edges and most are not even really rectangular. The advantage is that I know the person who's the importer and so I was able to buy 100 sheets wholesale! And 100 sheets was just about exactly what I need (with enough extras to cover for mistakes).

Of course, the paper being very irregular and very thin mean that I can not stack them up and cut several sheets at once. So I've been spending days trimming 100 sheets of 30"x20" Nepal Light down to 200 sheets of 10"x17 and 200 sheets of 6"x7". The corners have to be squared, and there's just no shortcut for this step. And I'm still not done.

Consulted with the cabinet maker who's making the folding screens. I wanted to make some changes, and he said no problem. Yay!

That was the 2 steps forward part.

The one step back — my 3rd senior has decided to not participate in the project. She says she's not sure she wants to have her images be in books that go into library collections. Valid enough, but I'm hugely disappointed. Especially since her prints have come out so beautifully. Which is another thing — she said she's been showing her prints around...and then her sentence kind of trailed off there, leading me to think that she's not getting very encouraging feedback from her peers or family? I can't imagine why, because all the people that work there who have seen the prints just think they're super.

So now I'm down in the dumps.

A chicken with out a head

Which is why tomorrow, I'm off to Da Vinci Arts Fair to get myself a little chicken for my head. Maybe it will help. [And of course that should be "chicken without a head", that's how without a head I was.]

But of course, that's all that I need to do—spend yet more money, having purchased 2 of the PDX Panels today, and not having sold my own (wah!), I'm like, one of the very few people, out of the ones I know, who haven't sold their panels yet. Almost all of the Open Studios artists' panels have sold; Diane (from my critique group), her panel sold, too. Why me!? Or maybe that should be, why not me!?

After Gretchin so graciously (once again) agreed to help me out and table for me at City Hall, I belatedly remembered that I did not leave her any cash to make change with. But if things went as well there as it did elsewhere, she probably didn't need it. Wah! Again.

I, me, and myself was at the Chinese Garden doing the gocco demo tonight, with some of my paintings and prints up for the evening. The garden had free admission tonight, but it was coooooold. Very cold. They brought me a space heater, but I was still pretty cold. I got pretty hungry too, but didn't want to eat too much since Mike and I were meeting for dinner. I snacked on almonds and some dried persimmons (yum!) that Blake gave me.

The day started out fine enough, although rather early. I was out of the house by 7:45am for my first appt of the day—25 2nd graders at Atkinson Elementary were waiting to gocco with me (and a team of volunteers). I took all my B-6 goccos. The plan was to go from one event to the next, all day, so the car was packed for everything I had to do.

But I finished at Atkinson earlier than I expected, so I came home for lunch and decided to unpack the Atkinson stuff from the car (an important detail for this woeful tale). Then I set up at City Hall, and went on to Old Town. Since I had a bit of time before I had to set up at the Garden, I went to see the panels again, and ended up buying 2 of them.

Then there I was, still had some time, so I was walking around in the Garden, enjoying myself, having a relaxed time, going over in my head what I needed to do for the demo. When I suddenly realized, I HAD UNPACKED ALL THE STUFF I TOOK TO ATKINSON ELEMENTARY, INCLUDING ALL THE GOCCO'S!!!

This was now 4pm, rush hour traffic. I ran out of the Garden, jumped in the car (giving up the perfect parking space for unloading) and got on I-5. Miracle of miracles, the traffic was moving. I got home, got the gocco, got back to the Garden in time to set up and start the gocco demos on schedule.

The Garden event started out a little slow, but between 5:45-7:15pm, I was demo'ing the whole time. Actually met up with several people that I had previously had connections with -- someone who bought a small artist's book from me a few years ago (never met before), and the parents of one of my students from this last summer. A friend from ye olde Tek was there too.

After that, dinner, then back to Portland Art Center hoping to catch up with a couple of people (and saw that my panel still hadn't sold, wah!), I got home at 9:30pm. Too tired to go for a Random Movie tonight, all I could gather my energy to do was to feel sorry for myself. So there.