The 9th Annual Retrospective/Year in Review "Ursa Miner @ Ursa Major" down at the distillery (link) opens tonite - now with extended hours of operation on the weekends: 3pm - 9pm. I estimate between the various pages for different organizations and groups (Ester's, Fairbanks Arts, First Friday Fairbanks, UAF Art Department and Ursa Major's official event page) + my own social media platforms (@907nuggets, Ink & Snow etc.) I've reached approximately 13.5k pairs of eyeballs - not counting the newspaper's numbers, so easily another 10k. Which in a small, intimate venue means I gotta make some more meatballs!
The tentpole piece this year (only gonna be one more of these after this - tying it off at ten) is once again "The Lodge." I culled two-hundred-fifty sample doodles from other folks, out of the thousands stashed away over the years, and mounting-puttied them all around the framed poster for prompts. This also teases the big-picture grand plan I have in store for a future installation... another idea that's been gnawing away at me inside for many years.
Trying out a smaller footprint with a little table to peddle my wares this year, as I scored a couple actual print racks so as to better display the loose originals off to the side. The top-shelf fully watercolored ones are for the most part shrink-wrapped onto a stiffer backing board, and can sit upright for flipping through in my custom antique box. However I've always had issues with flaccid & floppy line-art originals, and now I can unload hundreds of reduced-price ones culled from the archives in a "discount bargain" ie instead of $50 for recent work/technically detailed panels, there will be some at half-price, or even ten bucks a pop. And giving a new vendor, Sticky Brand, a trial run on a suite of sweet new stickers!
On a side-note, while spray-mounting the pieces for display, someone stopped by the studio and proclaimed it was "just like walking into the pages of a room-sized comic strip." That'll do.
As usual, another shout-out to the amazing folks down at DateLine Digital for printing up the whole show (and a few full-sized 18x24" posters) (and the newly repaired banner stand), which allows me to offer up extra backup prints from this show + last year's as well... in keeping with longtime tradition I still have a few wooden nickles left over from 2023 squirreled away.
So all the ingredients are added together: new expanded hours (now open 'till 9pm on weekends) + new bonus seating arrangements (the couches are gone which really opened up the space) + luscious libation (the Ester Caucasian - homemade Kahlua/vodka/whipping cream) as the new drink special + new work on the wall = CHEERS EVERYBODY!
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