thursday - to champaign!

woke, showered, packed, walked seth, and left for TBM. editioned some of the 'animals & objects...' prints for the krannert show, packed some other prints and books, and drove to metropolis to pick up sara. she brought me a chai and a croissant. we headed south on lake shore drive, to 55, to 94 south, to 57 south. i think we set some sort of record, arriving in champaign just over 2 hours after we left. stopped at lincoln bindery, the art coop, a thai restaurant (lunch), espresso royale, and the art & design building, hanging posters everywhere we went.

hung around krannert, fixing loose corners on prints and peeking at the 'blown away' show in the main gallery.

at 5pm, a bunch of the museum's sponsors arrived for a speech by the university's president, who announced that a couple in attendance had decided to add $500,000 to the other $500,000 they had already donated to the krannert and related arts programs. i just loved the cheese and cookies and ginger ale being served.

the proper opening began at 6pm, with a variety of old friends showing up, including alisa (mrs. dempsey) demarco, derek (from castor and centaur), matt tabott, bill johnson, stacey gross, and others. jenny and bob arrived.

sara sold prints, i signed books and postcards.

lots of fun, very exhausting. a couple of different faculty/staff groups were going to dinner after the openings, and we said we were unsure of who we were supposed to go with when people said "you're going to dinner with us, right?"

so after the show, sara and i started cleaning our stuff up, and ended up being the only people at the museum, aside from the guards.

called jennifer, who told us how to get to the restaurant she was at.

we drove to carmons, newly re-opened as a creperie, and ate with jennifer and bob, nan goggin (chair of art & design) and bob graves, dean of college of fine & applied arts. so great. very funny conversation, great crepes.

after dinner we went to jenny & bob's, hung out with the dogs, and went to bed. i was tired.