290 Hours Down and 30 to go!

As the title of this post suggests, I have completed 290 hours of my internship and have only 30 more to go in the next week and a half. I have been obsessively updating my Slimtimer account (my online time sheet) at the end of every day. Its my Carolina Countdown. I really do love my internship, I couldn't have imagined anything better for my summer. I feel much more competent as a printmaker and I learned about all of the administrative work that goes into running a studio. Plus, I get to work with an awesome group of people who are really dedicated artists who feel tons of ownership for the shop.

Last night we had our July meeting, the only one we are having this month because so many people are on vacation, including the shop manager, so I got to run it. Needless to say it was laid back. We went to the bar across the street and discussed scheduling and scoop coater etiquette over Abitas. We got a lot accomplished. For one, we made a new policy that leaving burned screens in the shop over night will henceforth be a privilege for monitors only. We discussed the need for everyone to pay monthly dues in a timely manner so that we can order materials. Our new monitor, Maureen, offered to create a chart to keep track of who pays monthly dues where each payment is earns the monitor a gold star sticker. Some things work at any age.

For the next week, I will be working to make sure that the monitors have everything they need until Meg gets back August 5th. This includes prep for Teen Screen, the week long summer printing intensive for teenagers which is completely full with ten students. I'm stoked the class is full, because this summer will pave the way for teen programming for the rest of the year. My other project is photographing all of the projects I've been working on the last few weeks and uploading photos to the blog!

A Thorough Update

I got back last night from a weekend vacation in Orlando where I met up with a bunch of friends from Carolina, so returning to work mode this morning is extremely tough. Not only do I miss my friends more than ever, but half of them are done with their summer plans and just get to chill at home. However, I think the dose of good friends and Seaworld did me good. I have almost 250 out of 320 hours logged for my internship, which means I'll be done really soon, and I want to finish strong.

Ariel, one of the people I work with at Artworks has been trying to organize a printshow for the beginning of August, which could be awesome. We spent much of Thursday talking about hanging options, figuring out entry fees, etc. We wrote a call to artists for the show to send to all of the printshop members, about 15 artists. I got really excited when we went upstairs to see the event space where the work will be hung. I'm also trying to barter a deal with one of the monitors who has a framing business to have everyone's prints framed at a rock bottom discount (Ken is so awesome). We decided to require pieces to be framed to protect the work and give everything a uniform, professional look. The only issue we are still having is choosing an opening night. A month is a really short amount of time to put together a show. One option would be to open on White Linen Night on August 7th.