Smoke Break

For years now the Belmar Arts Council has had a policy of asking participants in the various exhibitions to do some gallery sitting duty. (we have a paid office employee, generally there during the regular gallery hours, but she has way too much to do to be sitting in the gallery) The current show has 80 artists, so most of the two hour shifts have two gallery sitters. This afternoon it was my turn. Usually these gallery sitting days are pretty quiet so I always bring something to keep myself busy, often an art project. Right now I'm in the coloring process of the shower room print, a process that I've done there sometimes, but with this show the room is a little too crowded for all those materials. So instead I brought the smoking block from the Studio, which will likely be the next piece to finish after the current boardwalk image. As it turned out, I ended up spending the whole shift talking art related matters with the other gallery sitter, and talking to gallery visitors. We even managed to sell a few things on our shift, not too common on these occasions. (no luck talking the patrons into adding my print to their shopping list) Our replacements showed up on time and I was on to the next errand of the day.

Still, not a total waste of art time. As long as I had it there I showed the current version of the block to the other sitter to get some reactions. Once we got past the letter reversal confusion, she felt that the biggest obstacle to seeing my subject as an employee on break was her skirt. Like many, she saw it as a pair of shots, confusing the dark line that represents the edge of a shadow for a pant leg. I don't know if fixing that alone would make people see her as an employee, but it would probably help people understand the image better, so I expect to reflect that when I finally get to cutting. Her other suggestions were related to the background, a part of the print that I'm still debating. I'll keep this stuff in the back of my head for now, and hope I have some better ideas when I'm ready to seriously work on it again.