Kenyon Review Workshop, Day 2
Jun. 16th, 2014 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caitriSo to start off with, for some reason they decided to have an art studio class without providing aprons OR telling students to bring their own. Because printing ink washes out of nothing, ever, I improvised an apron with my rain jacket:
Not gonna lie, I feel like it was my best Macgyver moment ever.
Anyway, the day started with transforming yesterday's writing and image into a pamphlet:
I'm still not thrilled with it, but it offends my sensibilities much less in this form, I will say.
In the afternoon we made a flag book with another accordion binding--a structure the prof is clearly really into:
I hope I can come up with some things I actually like before our studio show, I really, really do.
Today they set up a letterpress station, which, FINALLY, something I know how to do! I ended up helping a couple of students with it, as, of all things, apparently I have way more letterpress experience than anyone else. (That is a sentence I would never think to write when surrounded by book artists!)
Anyways, I had my writing critique today, and it was useful. The instructors are excited about my printerfic and were encouraging, which was great: no bewilderment about the language or concept, no wanting more violence, no arguing against the protagonist's race, which, THANK THE GODS. They suggested I try as much as possible to tie in the week's projects as a sort of meta for the novel. So.
Tonight's writing assignment was nonfiction, so here's what I came up with:
Wayzgoose
I remember knowing I was a real printer the first time Todd gave me a Nutterbutter without asking. It was a joke of sorts; all of the men in the Workshop scarf them. Not me--too exhausted from running around fetching things, cleaning, doing this and that as needed. That was Printer’s Devil status: the newest and the youngest member (and still the only woman), got all the shit jobs and smiled while doing them: fry cook (no joke, THIS IS A VALUABLE SKILL WITH INKMAKING, deal), type-cleaning, papercutting to exact specifications. And the guys teased me constantly. Apparently men show affection by taking the piss out of each other--common knowledge to everyone but me, who mostly felt on the verge of tears--which left the guys, in their turn, utterly bewildered. Most of the time we were in the seventeenth century rather than the twenty-first--as we were meant to be with our teaching--but frankly that much testosterone is still a pain no matter what period you’re in. “I know you feel isolated,” Todd, the father of our chapel, said to me one night. “But you’re not. We’re your friends. Why don’t you get that?” And then one day, we were all sitting down, tired beyond words--and Todd passed the box of cookies around, first to Chris, then Jamie, then Scott, then me. It’s funny to really become one of the guys through what amounts to pure sugar in peanut buttery form, but it was still true.
So now it's about bedtime, and I'm zonked, but there you go. Stay tuned!
Not gonna lie, I feel like it was my best Macgyver moment ever.
Anyway, the day started with transforming yesterday's writing and image into a pamphlet:
I'm still not thrilled with it, but it offends my sensibilities much less in this form, I will say.
In the afternoon we made a flag book with another accordion binding--a structure the prof is clearly really into:
I hope I can come up with some things I actually like before our studio show, I really, really do.
Today they set up a letterpress station, which, FINALLY, something I know how to do! I ended up helping a couple of students with it, as, of all things, apparently I have way more letterpress experience than anyone else. (That is a sentence I would never think to write when surrounded by book artists!)
Anyways, I had my writing critique today, and it was useful. The instructors are excited about my printerfic and were encouraging, which was great: no bewilderment about the language or concept, no wanting more violence, no arguing against the protagonist's race, which, THANK THE GODS. They suggested I try as much as possible to tie in the week's projects as a sort of meta for the novel. So.
Tonight's writing assignment was nonfiction, so here's what I came up with:
Wayzgoose
I remember knowing I was a real printer the first time Todd gave me a Nutterbutter without asking. It was a joke of sorts; all of the men in the Workshop scarf them. Not me--too exhausted from running around fetching things, cleaning, doing this and that as needed. That was Printer’s Devil status: the newest and the youngest member (and still the only woman), got all the shit jobs and smiled while doing them: fry cook (no joke, THIS IS A VALUABLE SKILL WITH INKMAKING, deal), type-cleaning, papercutting to exact specifications. And the guys teased me constantly. Apparently men show affection by taking the piss out of each other--common knowledge to everyone but me, who mostly felt on the verge of tears--which left the guys, in their turn, utterly bewildered. Most of the time we were in the seventeenth century rather than the twenty-first--as we were meant to be with our teaching--but frankly that much testosterone is still a pain no matter what period you’re in. “I know you feel isolated,” Todd, the father of our chapel, said to me one night. “But you’re not. We’re your friends. Why don’t you get that?” And then one day, we were all sitting down, tired beyond words--and Todd passed the box of cookies around, first to Chris, then Jamie, then Scott, then me. It’s funny to really become one of the guys through what amounts to pure sugar in peanut buttery form, but it was still true.
So now it's about bedtime, and I'm zonked, but there you go. Stay tuned!
