An articulation of lists and projects

I sent this email to a former professor and colleague and feel it fits most perfectly as an update on my current happenings and possibles projects in process.

I had to opt out of the (farm)internship due to financial strains. But I work at a bakery for the summer and have the pleasure of being at Dane County's Farmer's Market every Saturday. Since being in Madison I've made connections with Tracy Hohn at UW's Silver Buckle Press and am talking with her about how we could form a new print cooperative for Madison. Everyone we meets seems excited at the prospect, so the interest is high, but we wonder who will commit at a more beneficial level. Currently it's talk and talking stock of interest, and now I'm trying to get her to get back to me about setting up a time and date to host a public meeting/info session in regards to it. Basically, we're waiting to take the idea public. It's hard when I mention to people back in Chicago that Madison has no real public printing space, they all think of the University's great resources and find it hard to believe there's nothing for the general public. There has been in the past, so they're ripe for a new one. It's a bit of a commitment but if it takes off, I may postpone graduate applications another year.

I am continuing to try and work my way in the art community here. Tracy at UW is an invaluable resource, throwing me at anyone I may be interested in speaking with. The kids at Mess Hall Press have been pretty nice and *hopefully* will pull through in helping me get my screen printing class proposal to the right people at Goodman Community Center, so I too, can teach a screen class through Mess Hall. I'm hoping to get into a printing workshop at the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers come June and in the meantime am going to build my own exposing/light table so I can start screen printing out of my garage.

I recently entered my Prize pig etching from 2007 into a juried exhibition on Culture and Agriculture and hope I make it in. Granted I haven't much recent work, showing anything could be an improvement.

Looking at Graduate schools did put me in touch with an amazing grad student names Katie Ries at UT Knoxville. We have many cross-overs in our work and she encourages other people to redo many participation-based works she has done in their own towns. I've been interested in re-appropriating her Tour de Plants as a Tour de Meats for the Dane County region of Wisconsin. A way to examine the absence of local butchers in highly populated areas like Madison, and then look at where they still remain, and why that may be.

Also, if you find any old cookbooks with meat cut pages, cut them out and send them my way! I'm trying to collect more meat-pages from various cookbooks from across the years, intro and all, as a way to examine our society's relationship to meat throughout the years in a domestic setting. I've only got a few from my own old cookbooks at this time and could use more. I'm not sure what I'll do with them in the end, but it's a collection I'm serious about developing and using.

Other than that I work, just tilled up a 6'x15' plot for my first garden in Madison, and continue to tell myself to put together a second issue of FED.

It's a lot of work for someone with not a lot of time outside of work. But I make the list, make myself talk about doing these things, and know, I will as the lists are usually posted up on a bulletin board staring at me 'til productivity is awakened.

So there you have it. Tour de Meats, Meat Pages, and FED.

I am also making it top priority to start chicken drawings again and get to the zoo for a drawing day. Yay. When that will happen? May I imagine, this week is booked solid.