Two out of three layers of color on my book’s two front covers!

Whenever I feel overwhelmed with a project, my mom says the same thing: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

Well, guys, there’s one more month left to work on my thesis, and I’m starting to choke on all this elephant.

The little bites of elephant that are going to (allegedly) lead up to a finished thesis project have now completely filled my calendar. Some bites sound fun: a studio visit at my home with an insightful professor who will help me edit down all of the things I’m considering including in my final exhibition. Some bites sound not-so-fun: a three-day block of 13-hour printing days. I won’t pretend that nowadays, I’m not stressed out all the time, but there’s something a little relaxing about having a set-in-stone (well, ok, set-in-my-laptop’s-calendar) set of events that all I have to do is follow. Yeah, the work may be hard or frustrating, but at least I know it’s going to get done.

These linoleum-block illustrations are the most time-consuming of all: a full 12- to 13-hour day to print one side.

It’s difficult to think about thesis as a beginning rather than an end, although that’s what it’s supposed to be. A beginning of this new body of work, a beginning of my career as an artist, and a beginning of a new studio practice informed by my years at Columbia. Right now, though, it feels more final than anything I’ve ever worked towards; I truly never think about my life after May 13th. What will I do with my time? What will I obsess over? Will I get a job? Where will I live? These major questions seem dwarfed by my current day-to-day considerations of which book cloth to use on a spine, how to print a colophon, and how to properly restore an old letter.

An overhead shot of the press when I print my linoleum blocks. All locked up tight!

I remember when I was in my first and second years at Columbia, watching the third-year students panic over thesis. I always thought I’d be able to budget my time and money perfectly so as not to fall into that trap. But here I am, trying to figure out whether it’s possible to get a pizza delivered to a print shop at 1:00 a.m. Hopefully taking things one day at a time will keep me sane enough to make it to the end. One bite at a time…