What’s been doin’ lately? Things are moving along, but slowly. I’ve been doing a lot of resting, but I’ve been getting some art done slowly here and there too. Not as much as I’d like to, but that’s never the case, so what else is new?

I managed to finally print those etchings last week with Master Printer Poli Marichal. We actually used my old studio in Highland Park, which now belongs to Stephanie Mercado and she has an etching press there. She gave us the key and allowed us to use it. It took us a couple days, but we gotter done and the prints look great.

Before that, one of my best friends, Yolanda Gonzalez and I were hanging out and somehow she managed to talk me into going back to her studio with her after breakfast one morning to mess with ceramics. Now I usually hate ceramics, but she somehow made it so much fun! Maybe when I tried it before I had a shitty instructor. I took a class at the local community college a few years ago when I was living in San Pedro. Actually, I didn’t even take a ceramics class. I took an open-ended, self-instructed arts term and the Chair made me do ceramics. I was totally reluctant about it, but I did what he said because I figured he was the “professional.” I wound up hating every minute of it and the potters’ wheels were designated for the men.

Anyway, Yoli and I wound up having a great time and she helped me to make Fire Dan!

I’ve also been doing this strange thing where I am taking paintings that I have already painted and doing miniature renditions of them. here is the first one of Danarama. the original is 36 x 36 inches, but this one is just 6 x 6 inches. I have a briefcase that fits about 10 small canvases and I am going to make them all mini versions of my bigger paintings so they can travel with me. It’s a silly little promotional idea I had, like old timey salesmen used to have smaller versions of furniture and pianos they would take with them in order to try to sell the real deal when they were out in the field. Crazy, I know. me and my silly ideas.

The rest of time time has actually been eaten up with helping out my best friend Tracey. She is finally moving back to SoCal from Pennsylvania after being out there for nearly nine years now. I found her a house in Joshua Tree that she is about to move into and I have been taking care of the whole organization of the thing. It’s been a little bit of work, but I must say I like doing it and I am so excited about her coming back and being just a couple hours away from me, that I jumped at the chance to do it all. She actually just left on the road today and is making her way west now. I’m going to the new house early next week to spiff it up and let the movers in and get it all ready for her. All I can say is I fucking hope she likes it!