{"id":1033,"date":"2009-11-07T18:26:20","date_gmt":"2009-11-07T22:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/2009\/11\/17\/team-approach\/"},"modified":"2009-11-17T20:52:52","modified_gmt":"2009-11-18T00:52:52","slug":"team-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/archives\/1033","title":{"rendered":"Team approach"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve come to the end of a outstanding week that began last Friday when I headed to Monterey for my fifth workshop with Wesley Bates<\/a>. I didn\u2019t pitch a tent this year, but had the familiar loft at Larkspur Press<\/a> to myself each night. The opportunity to concentrate on wood engraving for three days in that extraordinary environment made sleeping on a wood floor seem like the ultimate in accommodations. I continue to learn more about the art form with every retreat, and I now face the breakthrough act of finally acquiring my own set of customized tools, so I can maintain a year-round practice to replace my once-a-year introductory learning curve. On Saturday night, Wes, Juanita, Leslie, and I drove over to Hanna\u2019s \u201chouse concert\u201d by Kraig Kenning<\/a>, at the home Prajna Design<\/a> created for her (builder Garry Murphy was there, and I chatted with him). I\u2019m prepared to say that Kenning is the best steel guitar performer that I\u2019ve heard live (and I once watched David Lindley tape a Soundstage concert with Jackson Browne in Chicago). An enjoyable nightcap with Wes extended deep into the night as both of us discovered that we have even more in common as creative professionals. It was nice this time around to balance social enjoyment with lots of one-on-one time with Wes.<\/p>\n

The subject of my block was a pair of handsome mules that worked the Realm of Greystone when James brought in low-tech loggers after the ice storm of 1994. I managed to get some decent slides while they were in the Valley\u2014undoubtedly the last high-level transparencies I may ever take. It wasn\u2019t a bad note on which to end my slide-shooting era. I\u2019ve always wanted to begin exploiting those images for my art, and so I selected a shot of two mules with the tobacco barn in the background (a suitable tribute to the recently fallen landmark). My goal was to chose a style that would enable me to complete the block and print it within the weekend constraint, and that meant consulting with Wes about how to use an approach that didn\u2019t rely on time-intensive technique (the path I found myself on last year, resulting in a missed deadline). I may not ultimately like \u201cLogger\u2019s Team\u201d as much as my 2008 print, but I learned much about the medium, with a big step closer to understanding the elegantly minimal line quality that Bates has truly mastered.<\/p>\n

Last night I headed north again with Dana and Joan for Richard\u2019s First Friday event in Old Frankfort. Wesley\u2019s wife, Juanita Wilkins<\/a>, performed and Richard read poems<\/a> from his new volume about Abraham Lincoln (commissioned for the bicentennial observation). Everything about the evening was splendid, and there was a magical moment when the unknown \u201cHarmonica Man\u201d appeared from nowhere with his \u201charp belt\u201d to jam with Juanita. I\u2019ve been so fortunate to hear her a number of times now, and she never sounded better to me than last night; nor had she conversed with her audience so impressively or in such a personally revealing way. Absolutely wonderful…<\/p>\n

Wesley Bates Studio<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve come to the end of a outstanding week that began last Friday when I headed to Monterey for my fifth workshop with Wesley Bates. I didn\u2019t pitch a tent this year, but had the familiar loft at Larkspur Press to myself each night. The opportunity to concentrate on wood engraving for three days in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,53,12,45,8,36,23,16,39],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xorph.com\/uj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}