home again, home again.

So I made it to break and have made the long journey to South Carolina. I've already been to visit my mom who lives in Aiken and yesterday I drove to Greenville (my home town). It's weird driving into my home town after being away for almost 7 months. As I rode on the highway I kept thinking how odd it was that I have a new home in Nashville and that I never thought I would end up there. I was talking to my dad about my semester and he said, "Isn't crazy how your life ended up? You're in Nashville and loving your life. You could have been in New York or Florida or Savannah but you ended up here and it worked out great." He's so right. I had no idea what was in store for me when I decided to move to TN. So I'm feeling thankful, and how appropriate for the holiday. My break is going to be pretty busy, which is cohesive with my everyday life, but at least it will be filled with family and food. My dad's side of the family is coming together for the first time in years and they have planned a big week. They even rented a lake house. I'm looking forward to it.
And I want to write about last Friday when our Illustration class had a workshop at Bryce McCloud's shop. I took pictures and video but in my hurry to get on the road I forgot my camera cord to upload it, so I will post those when I return to Nashville. So the day began with a talk from Bryce who is extremely easy going and funny. His shop is hidden on the corner of 6th Avenue and has no sign (yeah we got lost trying to find it). He told us his story: went to college for sculpture and got into printmaking because his uncle collected old print presses and wood and lead type. His uncle passed away young and Bryce had graduated college with no job in sight and his family decided that the presses needed someone to take care of it, and Bryce needed to take care of something. He made the comment that in college he used to make fun of graphic designer and laughed saying that he ended up one. But he's passionate and so talented. I wanted to steal every print and poster that was laying out in the shop (but I held back). He took us in the back room and it was filled to the ceiling with boxes, blocks, screens, and numerous extremely old chest of drawers filled with type. It was messy and beautiful. For our workshop we designed our own people or animal and kept their body parts separate. We printed them on his press and then cut them out and made puppets. Then we cut out more and made hybrids with different parts from everyone's designs. It was fun. It's nice to just create for fun.

So that's it for now, I hope everyone has a wonderful thanksgiving holiday.
so I finally got the video uploaded. The sound is a bit low so make sure your volume is up to listen.