We’re going to Elkin tomorrow for the day, where I’ll pick up the little Joan Griffin tapestry that I bought this summer from the Foothills Art Center gallery there. Our neighbors bought a small resort home near Stone Mountain State Park and they are up there about half the time these days. We are going to meet them for lunch at Southern on Main and maybe check out their place, depending on how we feel tomorrow. It should be a nice day and I’m looking forward to it.
I briefly considered renting studio space at the Chatham Mill Arts Center up on the floor where the Yadkin Valley Fiber Art Center is, but I quickly came to earth because I knew that whatever the perks, I would not drive a little over an hour to Elkin and back often enough to make the expense worth it.
However, since then, a new opportunity only a mile away in downtown Greensboro presented itself, and I took it. Our 50+ Artists Community group had a small get-together at the Piedmont Print Co-op at the Cultural Arts Center, which I did not even know existed. Jim Weaver talked about his printmaking and demonstrated how he prints a monograph with a rolling press there. I asked him about the co-op and how many people were in it, and it was just him! I guess when the pandemic shut the building down, the other members found other places to go.
So I looked up the information about the co-op, and it is only $40 per month to be a member. Hell, it’s worth $10 a week for me to have access to a big work table by itself, but there are other tables, two presses and a station for rolling out ink, a darkroom space (which is being used for storage right now), sinks, and storage for supplies. I signed up right away, and I have been shuttling over a few supplies every day after work. This wasn’t a great week to begin because I have a lot to do, but I got excited. Hopefully I will be able to use the space mostly on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. One other person has signed up this week as well.
I’m not going to use this studio just for printmaking – it is going to be my book arts and collage space and I might bring over the big upcycled shirt blanket I had almost finished before my last studio space was sold. Having a big table to piece the rest of the panels together will help a lot to get it done. I have no place to do that at home, but I can sew it at home. I’ve considered making another t-shirt quilt also, because that was a lot of fun and we have SO MANY t-shirts! Any fabric or fiber projects like that I will be moving back and forth from home, though – I just need to use that big table and display wall for those.
My woodcut and Speedy-cut blocks and carving tools have been moved over there, and I have ideas for my next steps. That’s really important, because lately my mind has not been able to focus in one direction.
We’ll see how this goes. I won’t move all my supplies over there, although Jim has encouraged me to. He doesn’t realize how much I have! If I use it at least once a week, I’ll keep doing it. If not, it’s on a monthly basis and I can stop. It will be nice to divide my studios and have more space in the weaving studio at home. I just have to make sure that I don’t fill it up with more stuff.
slowly she turned 