We attended our first openings of the fall gallery season tonight, which was a lot of fun. It wouldn’t have been so, had our friends Katie and Eric not been there. They both left Atlanta/SCAD the same time we did, only Katie is now attending SAIC for her MFA, and Eric is racking up residencies and stuff left and right. I’m jealous of both. But we’re all here in a pretty great city, and it was a lively art scene tonight. Tons of people everywhere.

I’ve been teaching for three weeks now, and the possibility of another class at another school is possibly on the horizon. Steve (Aishman) always said they’d contact you at the last minute, and that advice (along with much other) has held true. So far the teaching has been incredibly rewarding. It’s weird, at times, to be completely in charge of the direction of a course. Not just the planning and syllabus and all that, but the simple direction day to day. I’ve been writing extensive notes about every single class meeting on the train home that evening, and I think that’s really helped keep me on track.

As a matter of fact, a student from another class was in the lab the other day, and when I asked her, she said that they were doing the exact same thing in her class that we were. It felt good to know we were on track.

The weather in this part of the country right now is phenomenal. It’s actually been a bit chilly lately (68°F high), but prior to that, it was around 90°F rarely, and generally in the mid to low 80s. I look forward to the snow for now, but I think I’ll live to regret those words.

My first day of teaching is today. Only thing in my way is a 15 minute bike ride to the train station, an hour on the train, and about 25 more minutes on the bike on the way to the school. Oh, and here’s hoping there are bike racks out there.

After two days of loading/cleaning, two days of driving, and one day of incomplete unloading, we’ve finally made it to our new home in Chicago. Our apartment is pretty amazing. Just a beautiful, big place that I can’t think of many ways to improve. (Well, wider doors so we could easily get the couch in would be nice, but I digress.)

Eric came with us on this trip, and we are incredibly grateful for his help, just like when Ryan Mo helped us move to Atlanta. Eric is a machine when it comes to this stuff (as was Mo). It has to do with the fact that his parents own a furniture store and he’s loading a few trucks in his day.

The neighbors around here are already proving to be fantastic. They’ve been friendly and helpful. Chicago is great. More later.

circa 1999

Well I suppose you can say it’s official. I just got confirmation today that I’ll be starting my first teaching job this fall at McHenry County College in Crystal Lake, IL, a good ways outside Chicago. I’m so happy to finally be realizing one of my major life goals. I know it sounds silly to a lot of artists who look at teaching simply as a means to making their work, but artmaking and teaching hold very similar weight in my life, so this is extremely big news.

I’ll be teaching the Beginning Photography course in the evenings on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which is entirely B&W darkroom-based. This couldn’t be more up my alley. As a matter of fact, I was so energized by the actual interview, I went home and started work on the syllabus. I’m pretty much done with that, so I need to begin work on the assignments at this point.

The program, facilities, and especially the other faculty sound like they’re going to be top-notch, so I’m looking foward to getting to work.