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QUEST: 1,000 Woodcuts Update
Spring 2002 -  157 completed
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Okay, it's my fault! A long time since I wrote last, but it has been a fairly busy season. I have completed some new woodcuts, but while I'm out there I can only carve, not print. So I find myself in the strange position of having a few carved blocks "waiting" for me in the studio. I'll get to them in the next month or so and I promise another update sooner than next year.
One thing that set me back was a commission that now proudly hangs in the new Boy Scouts Building in Las Vegas. Check it out, it's large!
http://www.1000woodcuts.com/fullsize/callofdesert.html

A busy season of art festivals this Spring and a couple of national print exhibitions:
http://www.1000woodcuts.com/exhibits/exhibit.html

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Lots of New Stuff:
A bright flowering prickly pear cactus,
http://www.1000woodcuts.com/fullsize/vegasneon.html
9-11 Memorial print
http://www.1000woodcuts.com/fullsize/911.html
Two engravings right along the lines of my road/landscape series
http://www.1000woodcuts.com/fullsize/followlight.html
http://www.1000woodcuts.com/fullsize/lettheriver.html
Doing my woodpeople thing a-la-large
http://www.1000woodcuts.com/fullsize/lightseekers.html
I ordered some boxwood from Matsumura-san, a supplier of woodcut supplies in Japan and got these delicious "rounds" that begged to be carved as is. The Life of a Tree series was born, the first 4 are up on the site:
http://www.1000woodcuts.com/WoodEngravings/engrave2.html
Also a human tower:
http://www.1000woodcuts.com/fullsize/castellets.html
And the print for a show illustrating portions of the Gospels, a show is currently up in Scotland:
http://www.1000woodcuts.com/fullsize/followme.html

There are other extremely silly ones, including the Year of the
horse, viewable from here
http://www.1000woodcuts.com/1000woodcuts/1000.html

Quotes and Diary entries:
http://www.1000woodcuts.com/1000woodcuts/quotes.html
http://www.1000woodcuts.com/1000woodcuts/diary.html

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Thoughts and Ramblings

(February)
All about perspective this time. No, not the artist's method of making a 2-D representation of a building look 3-D, but putting things in perspective.
There I was, surrounded by wild feral cats with not a can of tuna in sight...wait, that's not it. There I was in an art festival in the midst of 60 mile per hour winds, watching my booth and my newly polished works being pelleted by sand. The gusts came early during set-up on Wednesday and didn't let up until Sunday morning, only to return by the time we all nervously started to take our booths down that afternoon. There was sand every where, in the mats, inside the glass of brightly framed works, sticking to my booth walls, inside every box and bag...we chewed sand all weekend, drank it with our refreshments and watched our potential customers rushing by, cowering and spitting, wanting to get home. Needless to say sales didn't exactly flourish for the artists, although I consider myself lucky in more ways than one.

You see, Thursday evening, after the first day in the wind I returned to my motel needing a shower and a deep de-sanding. Hot water felt great and revived me somewhat; I decided to check on the trailer which I had unhooked the prior day so I wouldn't have to drag it all weekend. I parked the trailer out of the way near the trash bins and some piled up mattresses that the motel was evidently throwing away. Walking toward the trailer I spotted a homeless individual with a dog, both half laying half sitting on the mattresses. And I had just been mentally whining that Motel 6 didn't have enough cable channels...
I asked him if he had eaten and he said no. I went back to my room and got some money, it really didn't matter how much, might have even been a freshly earned twenty. He smiled and his weird looking blue-heeler (although I'm told they all look a bit strange) wagged his tail heartily.  Someone gave me money for something I love to do, and now I was getting even more satisfaction by putting that money to good use. Twice the worth, it was really all that simple.

Next day I was in such a good mood that I earned the nickname "Sparky." Everyone was complaining and some artists left early, demanding refunds and such silly things. The wind blew, there were fewer customers, a threat of rain, sand everywhere...it really didn't matter all that much. I considered myself the luckiest person on earth for the rest of the weekend and long beyond.

(May)
So there you have it. Since then I had had much better shows and complaining about the little stuff has never entered my mind. There is much work to be done, I have thoroughly backed up myself. But I am catching up, slowly but surely. All it takes is keep-on-doing-ness, lots of it.
To help myself out, I'm going to keep up my diary a bit better, transforming it into a progress report of my daily doings. Anything to kick myself forward!

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Quote(s) of the Day

"To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors."
--African proverb

Thanks for listening and health to all,
Maria

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Maria Arango, Printmaker
Las Vegas  Nevada  USA
http://www.1000woodcuts.com
Follow along!
maria(AT)mariarango.com
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