Ernest Bujok on my floor
When I was a student at Willams College in the ’70s, I was a double major in history and studio art.
I write often about  history, but rarely about the studio art.
I also rented a room from one of my professors, Tom Krens, who later went on to be the director of the Guggenheim Museum in NY. Â It was a pretty interesting place to live.
My focus was on printmaking and I did editions for our Artist in Resident, Jim Dine. Â We did the ‘bathrobe series’ that year, if you are familiar with his work.
My real passion as a student was for silkscreen printing and photography. Â Whey I graduated in ’76, I received a fellowship from the Thomas Watson Foundation that allowed me to spend 3 years traveling all over the world photographing, all expenses paid. Â The photography led to video, but the printmaking side languished.
Then, two years ago, my wife Lisa bought me a studio space on W37th Street in NY where I could resume silkscreen printing again after 30 years away. Â
I go to the studio as often as I can (and as often as we are in NY), and I have begun to create a body of work I am getting closer to being happy with. Â
Yesterday, I did a series on our friend Ernest Bujok.
I am greatly influenced by the work of Chuck Close. Â I own one of his, but it’s one of the smaller ones. And it’s only one.
My own prints are big, 36×48, but not so big as I would like to get. Like I said, I am getting closer to what I want.
We have a storage space in the second bedroom, where most of the work of the past two years lives. Â We have to have complete agreement before we frame and hang anything. And wall space is at a premium.
So before we consign them to the storage space, I like to spread them out on the living room floor to take a look.
A few get framed and hung in the office, which is a few blocks away. But how much can I inflict on the people who work for me?
Maybe next year Lisa will buy me a gallery? Â My birthday is in October.