timeline

Where to begin? I got the good news about receiving a McMurtry Arts Initiative Grant for this project on 22 October 2019, and the actual funds transfer took place just at the end of November. Today it’s 11 December, autumn quarter is winding down and we’re heading into the winter holiday break.

In my project proposal I budgeted roughly 240 hours of my time all-inclusive, and I would like to be finished with everything by the end of April 2020. So that’s roughly twenty weeks to go meaning that I’ll need to put in an average twelve hours per week on this project. Some of the time budget was figured in large chunks for things like traveling to Utah for a wood firing but 12/week sounds like a good target. Then again it sounds like a lot! Six hours each weekend and another six spread out Mon-Fri?

Even though I wasn’t teaching in Autumn quarter, my “flex” time since the grant notification has been taken up largely by research administration and departmental service of various kinds. I’m not expecting to have too much of that kind of thing to do in the new year, but I’ll be teaching new/time-consuming courses in the winter and spring quarters. I have an essay due for an exhibition catalog at the Mint Museum in February, and need to prepare the slide deck for an hour-long presentation at NCECA (the annual meeting of the National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts) by early March. Other things may pop up as well, they always do!

I should probably try to get in a good strong start on this project over the holiday break, and maybe I’ll try to get ahead on the Mint essay as well…