Marc Moss Art

So I've been busy matting art like mad. I've been surprisingly patient with the screw-ups, and have made quite a bit of progress. Awoke Sunday at 4AM unable to sleep, so I made a stencil and headed out with my spray chalk. It was the first time I had painted stencils in town, and I wanted to use a medium for which I couldn't get into too much trouble.

I used as my inspiration the idea presented here. It was fun going around and trying to figure out where to paint and how quickly to paint, how much paint to use. I learned a lot and will do things much differently next time. I checked yesterday, and all of the stencils (I did about 10) are still intact (contrary to a report I gave to someone yesterday. I thought the one in front of the shop with DRUGS in tile out front had been removed, but it was not.

It's not the first time I painted this around town, but it's the first time I've used stencils. The first time, I did it freehand, one in front of the local ice cream shop, and the other in front of the University Center. Both were completely gone the next day. The only one that remains is the one I did on the bike trail near my house.

All of this preparing for the show feels like it's going at a snail's pace. It's been interesting carrying mat board all rolled up and in plastic from the University Bookstore on my bike, but all of the matting is complete, save one piece.

Which leaves me to build frames.

Kevin came over on Monday to show me how to use all of the tools I recently acquired. Kevin's a carpenter, but he's also a good teacher. Must be his wife's influence. Once the evening was finished, we'd ripped a bunch of wood with the table saw, cut miters with both the table saw and the band saw, and made rabbit cuts with both the table saw, and, after having bored a bigger hole in the router table to accommodate the rabbit bit, on the router as well.

He worked pretty fast. My 'ol man taught me to measure twice, cut once, but Kevin sort of half-measured, half eyeballed it and in the end we had a not-too-bad-considering 3x5 frame.

Originally, I had planned to frame all of the pieces using pallet wood. Tuesday a guy from work was kind enough to haul me and the pallets I thought I wanted. We got 6 pallets. After three hours of work prying the wood apart, trying not to split any of the boards, I ended up with about five usable pieces of wood.

Not very practical.

I wasn't sure what exactly I was going to do about materials, when a guy who used to work with me called. He is some sort of assistant athletic director at the University of Montana. They were cleaning out a storage shed and about to throw away four 39.5x60 frames, glass and foamcore intact. He wanted to know if I wanted them. Of course. So he dropped them off on Tuesday. I spent Tuesday pulling the glass out of the frames and running back and forth to Ace Hardware.

Wednesday was a blur.

Thursday I decided to take the day off, and head down to Artini Night sponsored by the Missoula Contemporary Art Museum. Below are some pictures from that. I also figured it would be a chance to learn (more) about presentation, and to do some schmoozing.

Heads by Wesly Anderegg. Porcelain bowls by Amber Battista Olson.

But Thursday wasn't a total wash. As I was headed down to Taco del Sol to grab some food, two frames in an industrial dumpster caught my eye. Measuring about 24x36, I knew I couldn't bike them home, so I walked them home, then walked back downtown to get some food and pick up my bike.

Tonight I am tired. I finished my business cards, flyers and postcards to market the show. I think I'll get some food and sack out early.

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