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By Kate, 21 February 2010 5:29 pm

How I managed to get all the way through WAC without ever taking a studio art course completely baffles me, especially considering I very nearly went to art school. But instead, I ended up at a liberal arts school, became consumed by theatre and publications, and practically forgot about the fact that a studio course was even an option til it was too late.

It’s not like I didn’t do anything arty in college. Designing, building, and painting sets plus laying out all kind of campus publications fed my need for creativity. I even got to squeeze in Dr McColl’s Art History 101 class when I was a senior (it was pretty much a freshman class), and that made me wish I had started a bit earlier.

In any case, my art education now continues through my job, where I see priceless works of art on a daily basis and have access to curators who would probably be happy to talk my ear off about any particular painting in a period they specialise in, so I am not deprived. And perhaps it makes sense then that the beginning of that job coincided with me finally taking a studio class. At the end of last year, I finally did what I’d been meaning to do since I graduated college. I took a studio course. I learned how to screenprint at Edinburgh Printmakers. And it was awesome!

Since then, I’ve been taking advantage of the free 6 month associate membership to the workshop I got for taking the course. I’ve been going in pretty much every week, bumbling along trying to get better at printing. Nothing I’ve printed yet is terribly high quality, but I can see myself improving in little ways, which is satisfying. I think I’ll definitely be joining with a full membership in April so that I can continue making stuff. A lot of the other members print amazing art, but I’m really more interested in craft and making practical things like stationery and gifts for people. I like to keep it simple. But if I reach the point that I can support some kind of etsy shop or sell my stuff in the Edinburgh Printmakers gallery shop, I will not be complaining. The workshop also offers other types of printmaking like lithography and block printing, so I may try out some of that stuff once I have a member discount.

In any case, here are some of my first attempts at art in too long a time.

I printed this artichoke in class, so it’s the first thing I did. Since it was supervised, I think the print quality is actually better than some of the stuff I’ve done on my own, but that’s to be expected I guess.

I made about 50 of these snowflake cards and envelopes in a marathon session the Saturday before I flew to the states for Christmas. They made good presents for a few people.

For the first proper print I did on my own, I wanted to give myself some kind of art project-like assignment, so I decided to do something with maps. This is called ‘The Street Where I Live’ and it’s basically a google map of every place I’ve ever lived (at the same zoom level) twisted around and strung together so that the red line covers every street I’ve ever lived on. The aim was for me to be able to recognise each place by the surrounding streets and features, and I sort of can in most places. I may try this again sometime though, because it’s not printed very well at all. There are all sorts of lines and spatters and the ink hasn’t stayed put in some places. I don’t mind too much though. It kind of makes it look like scratched film or something.

Finally, to recover from all the screwups I had with the map, I did this really simple elephant print. Still not printed perfectly, but I like it anyway.

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By Kate, 1 May 2009 2:37 pm

I miss Washington College a lot today.

I tend to miss it a lot, and not in the way that I want to go back and live it again, because reading The Great Gatsby often enough (and, you know, living life) will pound into your head that such things aren’t possible. No. I miss it more in the way of remembering how awesome a time I had for four years and then being a bit jealous of myself, and then a little annoyed because maybe I didn’t appreciate it quite as much as I should have at the time. But no one ever does, because if they’re anything like me, they’re having too much fun to notice. As it should be.

May Day, just like Birthday Ball, is a major Washington College holiday. For those of you who have no idea of the traditions of my alma mater (and why should you?), May Day is generally known as a time of naked dancing around the flagpole. Usually at midnight. And usually large quantities of alcohol are involved. But I don’t really associate May Day with nudity alone. (I never did participate in that particular element anyway.) I associate it more with the general happiness that the semester is over, your work is (mostly) done, and it’s time to sit on Middle porch with some beer and some friends and some bullshit. And one year, a makeshift barbecue of Foreman grill proportions. I feel like that’s a particular feeling you don’t get very often in life, and even less so outside of college.

In any case, because I’m at work waiting impatiently for the metaphorical bell to ring so I can get on a train to London for a weekend break, I’m wiling away my time trolling through the WAC website looking at all the stuff I miss about sunny Chestertown. And pining. Maybe not for my college days in particular, but just for that ‘Hey, it’s summer and this beer is good and I’m not really concerned about anything else right now’ feeling. Because it’s a good one.