–Thanks, R.L.

The media in which I work is Xerography.  And I’ve spent years trying to find the technique that works best for me.  SC Artist Kim Lemasters introduced me to Xerography and showed me his method.  His method didn’t work for me…my first methods didn’t work for me.  Years later, I’m comfortable with my own process and find that it is still changing.  As my aptitude increases, my results change in unexpected ways.

For years, I worked on wood.  And honestly, I still prefer to work on wood.  However, I had work on wood that in my gut I knew was good that I couldn’t get shown.  I reworked some of the pieces on canvas and sent them to the same galleries as juried entries for different shows…and voila!  They were juried into the same galleries where they had previously been rejected.  It was at that point that I had to confront the issues of satisfying the marketing and realizing that it was not all about my process. 

I began producing ALL of my work for show on canvas while producing a few pieces on wood here and there because I loved them.  The result was a long resume of national shows and a secret belief (held by all artists I suspect) that some galleries and jurors simply have better taste and fewer biases about what constitutes “art” than others.

I decided to enter the Arts & Culture Alliance National Juried Exhibit of 2009 featured on the September Deadlines Post of ArtAndArtDeadlines.com.  As an experiment, I entered two pieces on canvas and a triptych on wood…just as a last hurrah for my sadly rejected wood pieces.  Only one piece could be juried into the show.  Wouldn’t you know… the wood triptych (pictured below) made the cut.

So, the moral of the story?  Oh hell, I don’t know…never give up on a piece you believe in?  have faith that eventually a juror will get it?  there’s no rhyme or reason to taste? 

Pick one.  Your guess is as good as mine.

It has to be said…I love Shakespearean literature. I confess to being a Romantic.  I confess to loving Hamlet.  I confess to having committed to memory endless passages of hackneyed lines so as to have them on the tip of my tongue at just the right moment.  I confess that I derive inspiration from the cadence of every line.  I confess.  I confess.  I confess.

In 2004, I lived in a tiny town in South Carolina with a lovely community theatre called the Pine Tree Playhouse.  Its players are still among my dearest friends.  In the summer of 2004, we decided to do Shakespeare in the Park in hopes that a handful of the 3500 residents would come and watch.

About 100 people saw the show over 2 weekends, but we were not discouraged.  Shakefest was born–a day long Shakespearean festival to be held outdoors…a festival dedicated to fresh, and often odd adaptations of Shakespearean literature–from a mobster version of Julius Caesar to a black and white TV sitcom version of The Three Witches scene (see pictured left).

I saw the festival through its first two years before I moved, and I still can’t stay away.  I’m not on stage anymore, but I attend every year.  Well, the time for Shakefest 2009 has come–Saturday and Sunday, October 17th and 18th.  I’ll be there for my dose of inspiration.  Join me.  It is only $5 for adults and $3 for children for the full day. You can enjoy the performances as well as a turkey leg, a few baked goods and lots of costumed performers.

Come in costume… the Queen is waiting!

I’ll see you there!     R.L. Gibson

I find myself working on Gluttony for the Psychomachia series today. Gluttony is represented in a Biblical sense by the bite of the apple.  Thematically, gluttony is being represented by the sideshow freak “World’s Fattest Woman.”

My subject is the world’s fattest woman only metaphorically, of course.  And then I began to wonder how many women live as the world’s fattest woman everyday–wallowing in guilt over their own perceived Gluttony, often false or imagined.  I wonder.

As many of you know, this blog as well as ArtAndArtDeadlines.com are produced via a wordpress.org platform.  I am a wordpress devotee, and I successfully made the transition from wordpress.com to wordpress.org despite my limited knowledge of CSS and such.

I still use wordpress.com for my work blog www.ADayInTheSmokies.com, and today I ran across a official wordpress.com logo contest that looks like alot of fun.  There is nothing like a side project to get the creative juices flowing.  I don’t believe my blogs qualify because they are wordpress.org platforms, but I’m going to participate anyway.   Click Here to visit the full post.  Here’s a cut and paste version of the WordPress Logo Fun post:

While we’re away, we’ll be running a contest to see who can use the WordPress logo in the most creative way. Take advantage of your camera, graphics applications, crayons, and anything else you have at your disposal. Create a post on your WordPress.com blog, upload your image or images, and leave a comment here with the URL of your post. Please make sure to leave the URL to your post in the comment text or the entry will not be accepted.

We’ll get you started by providing some official WordPress logos, but the rest is up to you. I’m sure you can do better than the photos I’ve included here. We’ll keep an eye on submissions and post some of them to the @wordpressdotcom Twitter account during the week.

The deadline for submissions will be 4 p.m. EST on Monday, October 19.

We’ll create categories based on the best submissions and run polls to let you select the winners. Prizes will include WordPress.com upgrades, swag, and maybe other surprises. Good luck!

Although I’m hard at work on Psychomachia with my friend Jerry Portelli, I can’t afford not to be showing work in the meantime.

I’m thinking about entering the notBig show in the Chicago Arts District.  All works must be 12″ or smaller–which means they are inexpensive to ship via Priority Mail Insured.  Plus, the entry fee is only $20 for up to 3 images. 

The call can be found at Art & Art Deadlines.com ; however, I have also re-posted the Call below.  The deadline is October 31st, 2009.  Hmmm…what should I enter?  Most of the Pieces of Me series is 12″x12″.  I’ll have to give it some thought.

SHOW: notBig: A Small Works Competition in the Chicago Arts District

ENTRY DEADLINE: October 31, 2009

EXHIBIT TYPE: Gallery Exhibit

MEDIA: This is an open call for any medium including painting, sculpture, ceramics, collage, mixed media, photography and glass.

DESCRIPTION: The Logsdon 1909 Gallery in Chicago, Illinois announces a call to artists for a juried show, December 11, 2009 to January 2, 2010, that is open to all individual artists working in the contemporary arts. $500 first. $200 for second. $100 for third. +Purchase Awards. Juror: Doug Stapleton. There is no intended theme for the work; it just needs to fit the criteria of being “small art”. No works over 12 inches in any direction. $20 for 3 images. Visit http://www.logsdongallery.jimdo.com for prospectus.

CONTACT: Marco Logsdon at logsdongallery@gmail.com or call 312-666-8966.