A Bowling Victory

A few weeks ago I wrote about having two pieces accepted into this year's Annual Jersey Shore Juried art show in Belmar, providing the stories behind each.  Today the prize winners for the show were published in a press release, and it was announced that my print Tenpins the Old Fashioned Way won the award for the category of Graphic Media and Drawing.  This is the second time that I have won an award in this annual show for a piece that had rejected in an earlier year, which can happen when there's a different juror every year.   I haven't yet seen the show, so I don't know how much competition I had, if any, so for now I just get to enjoy the victory.  Before this announcement I had heard that the BAC has decided to end the tradition of the winners of this annual show getting a special show of their own the following year, so I guess I won't be participating in my third such winners show.  I'm told it's a mixture of the amount of work required to put ir together, the relatively poor attendance over the run (only 6 artists and whoever they can invite) and the lack of income (no entry fees).  The decision is a little disappointing.  Not because I was hoping to have another big show (I'm really running out of stuff I haven't yet shown in the building), but because this show was a legacy of mine (a suggestion I made in time for the 3rd Annual show in 2007), and because viewing large samples of several artists work can be one a more satisfying experience.

Anyway, in honor of this new award for this not so new print, I decided to dig up and post a photograph that was one of the inspirations for this print.

As I stated last time, the start was the invitation to produce a print with a "10" theme, which got me thinking of bowling and how to compose the image to emphasize the pins, normally far away from the bowler's perspective.  But then I remembered I had found the above photo of my grandfather's in the basement, taken in a long ago bowling alley in Manasquan, one pre-dating pin setting machines.  How long ago?  No date is listed but the bowlers are all wearing ties, and the photographer's information stamped on the back includes his three digit phone number.  These spectators and architectural elements were the source for the upper part of the image.  The rest was derived from other vintage bowling references and some artistic guesswork.