A new semester

My second semester has begun! I'm feeling pretty enthusiastic about my plans for this spring.
I'm taking an intermedia class with Bart Woodstrup, a Fiber critique course with Kathie Webb, and contemporary art history with Sarah Evans. This is in addition to the Artists' Book class I am teaching, my first time teaching an undergraduate course entirely on my own.
Also, as it is the spring semester, I have a lot of application deadlines looming over me. I'm trying to guarantee that I get to travel and educate myself further during the summer, so I will be applying for work study scholarships at Penland, Haystack, and Arrowmont, in addition to some summer internships in which I'm interested. Hopefully at least one of them will come through!

I spent the majority of the winter break visiting with my family and friends, which was lovely. Once I returned to DeKalb at the start of the year I concentrated on finishing the final details on my weaving, planning the syllabus for the Artists' Book class, and working on the writing for one of my applications.

I am greatly concerned about balancing the demands of my course and my own studio work. The course should take decided priority, as I am responsible for the academic welfare of my students, and I want to provide them with the best Artists' Books class possible. My first course was taught by Melissa Jay Craig, and I remember how overwhelmed I was by the possibilities of this art form that I had never before considered. It is my greatest desire to provide my students with an experience that is similarly inspirational.

That being said, I do have a variety of goals for this next semester, including:

1. Completing the installation of my weaving in time for my first critique in Kathie's class.

2. Learning about the Arduino Lilypad, and using it in my work!
From the Arduino site:
The LilyPad Arduino is a microcontroller board designed for wearables and e-textiles. It can be sewn to fabric and similarly mounted power supplies, sensors and actuators with conductive thread. The board is based on the ATmega168V (the low-power version of the ATmega168) (datasheet) or the ATmega328V (datasheet). The LilyPad Arduino was designed and developed by Leah Buechley and SparkFun Electronics.

This adorable device will allow me to program interactive sound and/or lighting in my pieces, to respond to the presence of a viewer. I am SO excited about this.

3. I also intend to finally make my screenprinted watermaking shas for my large-scale papermaking. It is going to be a huge undertaking that will likely take the majority of my studio time to complete this semester.