Themeless Salon in Belmar

Tonight was the Themeless show opening in Belmar, a Salon event.  That means that all the exhibiting artists are invited to spend a few minutes speaking about their piece in the show.  I'm showing an old piece in this show, an etching that I did in my undergrad years, chosen for a few reasons.  First, it qualified as something I haven't shown before in this space.  Second, it was already in a frame, saving me the trouble of doing that.  But mostly I was thinking of the salon thing, that I would have some information to share.

As I wrote last week, I have no specific memories of how the concept of this piece came together.  I believe she took a random pose and I drew it.  The complex narrative content that is typical of my later portrait and figure pieces is missing, no big stories going on here.  Most of the story tonight would be technical, the process of creating and printing an etching, one of those things that most of the audience has no experience with, and probably little knowledge.  I was able to find the plate used to create the print and brought it with me tonight to show people, and as expected few people there had ever seen one.  It's not a crowd with a lot of formal art training, and places where art is taught are working to eliminate printmaking from curriculums.  We have a lot of older photographers in the organization who learned in the days of film and dark rooms, but those have become lost arts as well. Of the two schools I work at, one completely eliminated photography and printmaking several years ago (classes off the schedule, equipment given away) and at the other they barely hang on by a thread.  In a post-Salon discussion tonight I was asked by one long time member why I didn't do more etchings, as he liked the piece I was showing and said he long admired the medium.  Simple answer is that I don't have ready access to the equipment or materials.  My former college classmate Linn stopped etching as soon as she graduated- had no where she could go to get access to a press, acids, etc.  As I often tell people, all you need for woodcut are a few hand held tools, wood, and a sturdy table.  All are available and relatively affordable.  Thus, I cover it with classes at my colleges and there at Belmar.  I could probably remember enough basics of etching to teach an introduction to the process, but there's no place to teach it, and people who've never done it aren't likely to invest many thousands in a studio of their own.  I walked away from etching decades ago, while still in school with ready access to etching equipment, so in my case it was an artistic decision.  Seems to have worked out.

The huge crowd tonight included Janine, exhibiting as a Belmar artist, and the fourth member of our pizza eating party back in December, and the only one not from William and Mary.  At her request, gave her an update on how the rest of that evening went.  Also let her know that the print show the others had come up to see was still on display at OCC, should she have an interest.  And speaking of that, I learned this week of more possible exposure for that work.  As part of the pre-semester activities they hit us with, there was some kind of poster contest with results being displayed in that hallway.  So perhaps there were a bunch of faculty wandering around near my art.  One of my other jobs meant I couldn't go to that so I don't know what happened, but if I learn of something I'll mention it here.