Smells

Near the end of class, paper litho (see the "plate" in the foreground: a xerox covered in gum arabic, water, and ink. You can only discern the water, but see how it's being repelled in a few spots? The ink sticks to wherever the xerox toner is). I was glad to leave the stinky home (some major and involuntary construction going on that involves sealant that smells like a mix of epoxy and nail polish remover. It can only be bad for you) and head to class, though of course there are a host of other things to smell there. Somehow, the familiar toxins are a little less scary than new ones.

I had spent a good deal of last night cutting and gluing tiny pieces of paper for chine collé. Fumiko thought it would be more interesting if I had all the bits scattered on the print, rather than in the places where I had sized them to fit into the image. Though I agreed with her, I still put everything in their place because I couldn't bear the thought of having cut everything to size, glued it (see the end of the green glue bottle again!), let it dry, transported it, put it all together again, only to scatter it in the wind (aka press). Maybe some other day.

Velma's postcard image (in reverse, because I wanted to test it on a xerox machine; the laser printer I was using had toner that kept being lifted off), printed onto Asao's shifu! Very nice.

On my walk yesterday, I noticed all these nice wind chimes in one spot. Seemingly made of bamboo, apparently they are actually plastic. Sigh. But a more pleasant and less scary sound than tinkly chimes.