Thank you Marnee Woodruff who attended last nights talk. What great insight she has for the show. ART103 Extra Credit Assignment Marnee Woodruff 8/8/14 Analysis of Max Grover’s piece, EQUAL Last night I was at the Bainbridge Art Museum at an event to celebrate Max Grover’s new show, Hunter, Gatherer, Painter. It feature an interview with the artist, a slide show presentation by him, and the usual Q & A afterwards. It was informative and fun. I had already seen the show, and, as I write this I am sitting next to a collage piece I did in the 70’s, so I can relate to his work in a personal way. In his journey as an artist, he has gone from doing watercolors to being an oil painter to painting in acrylics. In the last four years he has evolved into doing collages supplemented by acrylic pieces. (Or vice versa.) My favorite piece by him is entitled EQUAL, pictured above, which is, as noted, an acrylic and collage piece done in 2014 (measurements are approximate, I’d eyeball it at 36 x 48”). I love the juxtaposition of the EQUAL sugar packets to the gay couples being married. And how they correlate with the = signs between the gay couples and the straight couple in the center. When you first see it, it takes a second or two to comprehend that the cheerful celebration of wedlock is actually a statement for gay rights, it’s done in such a casual, folksy, nostalgic way. It’s wonderful. What I love about his pieces is what I love about really good films, you can see them over and over again, and see something new in them every time. What’s especially fun about EQUAL is it comes with it’s own collection of wedding memorabilia, most of it disturbingly straight (I guess there were no gay people in the 50’s), so it’s nice to compare and contrast the two and see how wonderful it is that times have changed since Washington state legalized gay marriage on February 13th, 2012. It means a lot to me as I grew up in a religion that taught gays were to be condemned and since leaving that organization, I have (of course) become a liberal and now have contributed to 8 independent films, as a Costumer, Caterer, you name it, and almost all of them were gay themed, made chiefly by gay people. I love working in that kind of environment as it tends to be less restrictive and more creative that on straight sets. And they get my jokes WAAYY better than straight people do. I also am looking forward to volunteering to be at City Hall in Seattle and help the gay couples get ready for their ceremonies. It’s about Damn time! He’s also a film fanatic, and as I’m a Film Psychology Major, I love his piece entitled CINEMA. Having been married to an artist myself, the pieces entitled STARVING ARTIST, and CLOSE COVER BEFORE STRIKING are definitely pieces that strike a strong chord in me, which are pictured below: I think a piece like EQUAL provides society with positive reinforcement as to the direction we should continue to go in the human rights area. It’s a celebration of: Everyone’s right to screw up their life by marrying the wrong person, in that we should all be Equal! And, for extra, extra credit, I enclose images from the first film I worked on: Creatures from the Pink Lagoon, 2004 Our tag line, “Pink is the new Black” (It can be rented at Scarecrow or streamed on Netflix)
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 23:13:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015