Since the last blog post, school started. I suppose many people would interpret that to mean preparing for classes and teaching has taken up all my time. Those things do take up a lot of time, but in addition to the classroom stuff, there's also been some of this:
The Art Department has an annual retreat at Lake Greenwood. We spend a good bit of time preparing for the upcoming academic year and then we have some fun paddling across the lake and down the Saluda River.
It was a hot but beautiful day on the river.
I left my mark in rocks.
This is the "before" shot just as we were ready to embark.
Professor Holloway is the coolest.
This is the "after" photo when we pulled out of the river at Holloway's family farm.
After the retreat we spent a week and a half getting the studios ready for the new year. I used this time to do my once a year sink cleaning in the sculpture studio.
Much better.
Blue and I won an award in the 3rd Annual Juried Exhibit at the Spartanburg County Library. Blue was the model so he thought he should keep the check. I bought him a doughnut instead.
The biggest news of the summer was that Laurens got a Chick Fil A. The grand opening was a couple of weeks ago. See, we have very few food options here out in God's Country so this was a very big deal.
We did our part as a family by going to opening night along with every other human in a 50 mile radius. Company president Dan Cathy was there and he talked with us and took our tray for us.
Also during the warm up to classes beginning, I moved my office closer to the sculpture studio. I also moved the 3D printer into it's own little workroom for student use and got it all set up again. It's running pretty smoothly and it cranked out chihuahuas for about a week.
Classes did begin and we hit the ground running to make the most of our time. I have 3 classes of Sculpture I students and they are busy making wood sculptures. Buttermilk up there is making hers to fit her head so she needed a tape mold of her cranium.
The world has so many new power tool users now. I love this part.
Our first exhibit this year is our faculty show. Cessquatch, Sean of the Dead and Ashley the Whisk came out of student retirement and came to our opening reception. That's Cessquatch and Sean vogueing with Singletary. As always, Singletary can't keep a straight face.
And because they were nice enough to come visit, we had to go to Millhouse for pizza. These are some of the funnest people to be around. If you get the chance, I highly recommend it.
And speaking of good people...the Lander art family took to the street the other night for a Greenwood street festival. Our students and a few of the faculty grabbed some paint and some brushes and divided into teams to create Tunisian Collaborative Paintings.
We were in teams of 4 or so and each team painted in silence, only responding to the sounds and actions around us.
The work was fueled by a stack of pizzas and the enormous positive energy among our students.
I worked with Cameron, Kayla and Dread (Kristen) and this was our finished painting.
And though we don't do face painting, when you're painting on the street and a cute kid asks for some paint, what can you do? You do what Molly did, you turn around and you make the kid's face into art.
We're just three weeks into the semester and we haven't slowed down yet. It's going to be a great year.
