Smoking in Public

A few people who have been in the Studio this week had seen the finished smoking print, but one goal with all my art is to get it into public view, and that moment may be at hand. Since there were on and off thunderstorms all Thursday evening, I left my matted print on the table where I had cut it. With better weather yesterday, I picked it up on my way home from work and dropped it off at my new apartment, along with the frame and plexiglass. Last night I got back there and put it all together, laying it out on my mostly empty floor. In the above photo you can see that I had stamped it with my chopmark in red ink (lower left of print), and also signed it along the bottom right edge in pencil.

Above is the matted print, showing how the cropped image looks. (it's a little dark, because of the relatively dim light in my apartment until I get some more lamps) Generally I frame prints in a more traditional way, with a little bit of paper margin between the print image (almost always surrounded by a black line border in my work) and the window mat, but I didn't want my black line border to show on just the two vertical sides, so I let the image go all the way to under the mat itself. Even though there has been a lot of disagreement about the interpretation of the figure, for now I gave it the title I had always intended, 21st Century Employee. Maybe the title will be enough for viewers to accept my intentions for the image.

The last stage in all this effort was to submit this to the next exhibition at the Belmar Arts Council, a show called Art on the Edge, which is intended to gather art showing low brow influences and techniques. The print wasn't created just for this show (the idea has been in development for more than 4 years, and the block started over a year ago), but when this was announced at the beginning of the summer, I figured the finished piece would be the best thing I'd have available to fit the theme and worked hard to meet the deadline. I volunteered to help with the intake last night and today, and brought the framed piece in this morning before the crowds arrived. Everyone who saw it come in the door was impressed with the detail and the strength of the image, but it's now in the hands of the jurors. I've known Jenn and Sarah for years and they both have claimed to like my work, but I don't know if they will see this print as fitting the theme and/or going with the rest of the works chosen for the show. (over 150 pieces were submitted) Juror results will be announced this coming Wednesday. Regardless of whether or not it's a part of this show, the piece will be one I submit to other juried shows, and choose for invitationals and solo shows, for years to come.