Like a bad habit, these guys keep coming back. I was thinking today about my two cigarette paintings and realized I never shared their latest news. If you don’t know what I am talking about, you can read the beginning of their journey here:
Smoking
All my life I have been grossed out by cigarettes. At birth, my lungs rejected the choking smoke in the air until I grew out of the asthma or my little lungs grew acclimated to their environment. My youth was surrounded by the disgusting vice of ashtrays and surrounded by the stench that permeated everything. My sister and I remember countless sick…
If you have already seen “Butts in the Seats” and “Burning at Both Ends,” You know I got really into, not “painting what I love, but painting what I saw and understood. These two of watercolors of nasty cigarettes were inspired by the students at American College of Building Arts in Charleston South Carolina. I painted them as part of a collaborative effort with Preserving a Picturesque America (PAPA). In my above post, I focused on the sweaty camels with the cigar nub. This time I am going to shed some light on the Marlboro gang. Last March I entered “Burning at Both Ends” in the Summerville Artist Guild’s 49th Annual Judged Exhibition with guest judge Steven McDonald from the California Bay Area.
I didn’t get the chance to meet Mr. McDonald but I admire his work and was surprised to see that he had shown artwork in the same Northern California gallery that I had, possibly at the same time even. Small world. I was out of town with my California friends for a much needed visit. When I got back home, I found that I had received the Best of Show for “Glorious Day” and First Place in Mixed Media for “Burning at Both Ends.”
How exciting to be seen and appreciated! I guess that is what us artists are looking for, that connection where you put something out there and someone says, “Yes! Nice work, I get it. Keep it up.” I think I am finally getting to the point where I don’t stop myself and say, “wait a minute…don’t paint that. No one will like it. Where on earth will that go?” Instead, I am painting. Just painting for fun to see how it will turn out. And it is fun. I have been thinking of all the ideas I have had that I didn’t follow through on and I wonder how much fun I missed by not just creating it like my soul told me to.
Create it and then create the next thing and the next. That is my new goal.
I also finally got to show these guys together at North Charleston Arts Fest where they hung side by side as intended. They didn’t win anything, but they were in good company.
Footnote: My two paintings are still for sale and I will share the proceeds from both with PAPA and American College of Building Arts should either one sell. You can purchase “Butts in the Seats” from PAPA or contact me for either or both. Maybe you need them in your smoking room or no smoking room. They are also Available in prints and this one too. (I get kind of carried away with hyperlinks. I am not sure if anyone ever clicks them.)