Demo Day IV: Recap (+ bonus video)

No ties this year!

While maybe half as many attendees this year as compared to the last, the Demo Day 2024 event went wonderfully in as how special the individual interactions were. In other words, it's never about me, but rather the folks on the other side of he table who make it worth it. Same could well be said for the newspaper panel and teaching in a classroom.

...this is what it's all about...

Put another way, I simply had a nice chance for a change to take more time, slow down, spend longer with anyone who came over to the table either claim their art after signing on with a new subscription - or recent renewal - and/or just watch a demo, or even catch up with an old friend, and make new ones too. There was also a bonus cookout right on the other side of the window in the front lobby, with publisher offering up hamburgers & hotdogs on the grill - thanks for breakfast and lunch!

One of the very last two drawn, when I finally put the nostrils in the correct face space

Not only is the spotlight on the host venue, and how important it is to support local, independent journalism (and the peripheral talent, natch), but in retrospect I thought about how the centralized hub of my home here in the Interior affords the opportunity to connect with folks from all over Alaska, like this little dude from Savoonga, Alaska's most remote island.

After almost burning up on re-entry to a busy fall semester (60-something hours a week for a short spell), it was extra nice to take a "break" from academia. Had to miss a faculty meeting and couldn't attend to any number of items on a long list of tasks, but gigs like this serve as a sort of psychological reboot, artwork once again offering up a therapeutic becalming, a temporary buffer zone against reality & responsibility.

And while ensconced within the zone, even if the overall output + pacing when producing approximately 30-odd (and I do mean odd) pieces, every one remained an original, each "walri" was unique individual. Stats: 1-minute to doodle out a rough sketch (down to 30-seconds at the end of the day), 2-minutes to ink it up, 3-minutes to add a color wash. Not counting dry-time, which was accelerated by the 80°F temps, or higher sitting in the sun inside the lobby, but I was fortunate to have a fan on me at the table, so as to not put a literal wash on the watercolors with perspiration. Not to mention avoid any sweat stains on my new uniform. And yup, there were a couple "coo-coo-katchoo" comments, and it did occur to me later that there probably was a few people who might have recently had a nice thick, juicy Odobenus rosmarus sammich some time recently. 
Oh and here's the obligatory reminder to subscribe - thank you.  

 

Spectacular fall weather (and the start of moose season) inspired a large demographic who bailed outta the 'Banks and got a head-start for a weekend away in the woods. But again, the comparative smaller stream of people made for a much more relaxed gig overall. Still stayed focused and managed to crank out one every ten minutes or so on the average. And while I did down a copious amount of coffee, the footage itself is ever so slightly sped up.