A lot is going on around school right now. It’s thesis time, projects are wrapping up in anticipation of the end of the semester, and we have guests coming in and out what seems like all the time! So, I thought it would be fun to do a snapshot of the past week and to let you know what I did everyday. This is what my life is like around here:

Wednesday

From the perspective of the student - the Mini Fellowship review panel

Wednesdays are my big ‘free’ days in the middle of the week. I don’t have class until 6:30, so I’m usually able to do a lot of catching up. Last Wednesday, I worked all day preparing files to be made into film to use to make polymer plates for letterpress printing. This required a lot of InDesign and Illustrator work, tea, and concentration (I was working with a lot of tiny text). I finally got my files sent of successfully and then hopped on the Blue Line and headed towards class. The class I have on Wednesdays is Connected Studio Practices (remember here?). This past week we had an exercise in the review of our work. We were all required to apply for the InterArts Mini Fellowship. We had to submit five images of our work along with an artist statement. We then had to sit at the back of a room while a panel of three judges reviewed our work as if we weren’t there. It was a great window into how your work is perceived by strangers, how your images are read, and how your artist statement is read. I wanted so badly to jump in and start having a conversation with the judges during their review!

Thursday

At 2:30 I met with my fellow curators for Material Assumptions: Paper as Dialogue. We discussed the status of our pieces for the catalog for the show, caught each other up on how paper production was going and made some long to do lists. Between 3:30 and 5:00 I met with two of my classmates to discuss summer plans, which include the possibility of running a mobile paper workshop and the beginning of a new book and paper art specific blog.

From 5:00 to 8:00 on Thursdays I run open studio in the print shop, overseeing undergraduate use of the presses. After I was done with that, I popped over to the paper studio and put some fiber in a bucket to soak overnight so that on Friday….

Friday

I could get up, get to school at 8:00, and start to beat some pulp. From 8:00 until 12:00 I beat pulp. Then, from 12:00 to 12:30 I had lunch. Then I went to class, Artists Books, until 2:45 when I headed back over to the paper studio to set up a demo for one of the artists I’m working with for Material Assumptions. I met with the artist until about four and then worked on making paper for her until 9:00 PM. While I was bustling around, something had started happening in the gallery at the Center. Slowly thesis installation was beginning. Boxes, wood, paint– all were accumulating along the walls and in the corners. There was an energy of nervous excitement floating around from all of my third year colleagues.

Saturday

The window at Maria's Packaged Goods and Community Bar.

Breakfast at Bridgeport Restaurant. Work at school from 12:00-6:00 making mock-ups for a book project I’m working on. Watch, totally impressed, as the pieces for thesis start to go up. These guys have really made some amazing things this year. If you are local, I highly recommend you come check out the diverse and magnificent display of artwork done by my fellow InterArts folk.

And then a stop at Maria’s before heading home.

Sunday

Day of relaxation and recovery– maybe some bad-tv-watching involved and some really good cheese and a baguette (definitely involved).

Monday

A close-up shot of my graduate assistant project

Another graduate assistant day. I work four hours on Mondays in the evening. So, I have most of the morning to get stuff done. This Monday I made some paper runs, collecting materials to use for an upcoming project and then got to school early and started work. One of my GA responsibilities (I may have talked about this before) is to proof a large group of cuts that the CBPA has recently acquired. That was my Monday afternoon, spent on the press, proofing cut after cut, piece of type after piece of type. It was quite lovely.

Tuesday

Tuesday I work from 12:00-6:00. I run open studio for the undergraduates for half of that time and then fulfill my other GA responsibilities (upkeep of the studio, proofing cuts) for the second half. On this particular Tuesday morning though, I had to get in early to present to the Student Organization Council a proposal our student organization Pulp, Ink, and Thread has made about going to New York Art Book Fair next fall. Whew.

Wednesday (Again)

So, now it is Wednesday again. As you can tell, days get pretty busy – but they’re the best kind of busy. They’re the kind of busy that involves doing stuff I really like everyday.

And that’s a week in the life of Hannah King, graduate student.