Residency at Mesalands Community College: Part 2

The completed mural project for Mesalands, in their Studio Arts building.

Choosing the right projects to focus on is always a challenge for me, and I'm almost always crunched for time,  I had only a week in Tucumcari to chill, work, and meet the staff and students -  but I knew I wanted to leave my mark. Yousif and I toyed with making something sculptural, but I already had a casting in the works (see Part 1), so I was able to crank out a mural in less than a day and it seemed to fit the bill!  It's among my favorite things to paint large.  This piece is a perfect fit for the space, and it's a direct extension of my current aesthetic and thematic interests.

One of my chief tasks during my time there was to help the faculty get their litho area up and running.  

An entire post could be written about this phase of the trip, but suffice it to say there was

a lot of swearing, some late nights and a lot of resourceful thinking including cutting new scraper bars and stretching leather for them from old leather aprons. 

We also used Coca-Cola as an etchant in lieu of phosphoric acid (most Cola contains it) to mixed effect.  Eventually we got some good impressions from a press hitherto mostly used to stack stuff on.

The press was dusty, but worked beautifully with a little TLC and some adjustments to their setup.

Faculty Joel Kiser and I worked late into the night trying to get some impressions and refresh our litho memories.
We opted for the plate because of the direct, lower stakes nature of the plate vs. the stones they have there.  Graining was not an expense of time we could afford.

    

I left a few prints for the shop and hand-colored a few as well as the staff, and took the rest home. 
Some will end up cutouts, and others may find another life on the streets of Minneapolis.
It's not a crowning achievement, but it certainly paid off to put my all into the project. 

I left feeling far more confident with my Lithography skills, and hopefully got the faculty to a point where they feel they can make use of their equipment.  For a good handout on plate lithography, check this one out - it helped us a lot.  It was written by Ward Walker at Austin Community College.

Amidst these projects I was also in the spotlight, getting a couple of radio interviews and an opportunity to speak at the College.

Here I am at KQAY with Joel Kiser talking about myself.

All in all it was an extremely cool experience and I felt like I really grew professionally and creatively by learning new things, challenging myself where I felt reluctant to do so.  The staff, faculty and Students were very gracious and made me feel very much at home.  I'd love the chance to do it again.