Good morning, afternoon, evening... I suppose it all depends on when you are reading this right?
I've been pretty lax again posting here, but we had some exciting news to share with all of you and I finally had a little time to assemble my thoughts.
As most of you know, Josh has a bit of talent in the art department. Yeah, I know...this has the makings of another proud mama moment right? Well, bear with me.
First a little background:
This year he signed up for an AP Art Studio class at school which, at times, hasn't been quite what he expected but has since improved. He's now at the point where he has to assemble a complete portfolio of what he can do for presentation later this Spring at the art show. He's a senior so he'll have an entire wall dedicated to his stuff. That in itself is pretty cool. Anyway, the portfolio consists of 11 or 12 different pieces all done with a specific theme in mind, plus a couple of alternates. His theme is duality so most everything he's doing has a definite contrast to the elements. good vs. evil, black vs. white etc, or shows some sort of inner struggle. There's a little bit of self-portrait in a lot of them too because he's used himself as the person or people in the drawing. I wish I had some pieces to show you here, but at the moment they're all works in progress or he isn't ready to take photos of them yet. I will post photos as soon as I can.
So, now the exciting news:
Early this year he did a piece that required him to take a photograph of someone or something, convert it to a plain black and white image and then recreate it using a fine tip Sharpie marker and white paper. Josh chose to take photos of himself in a classic James Bond pose looking at the camera with his hands clasped together so his fingers form the shape of a gun. Here's the fun part. The drawing is done so that all of the gray and black areas of the photo are made up of words, phrases, movie titles, and the actor's names who've played James Bond. In the darkest areas, the letters are small and close together and sometimes, overlapping, and in the lighter areas the letters are larger or spaced apart a little more. When you see it up close it looks a little ragged, and you can see the words he's used, but when you stand back about 4 or 5 feet it looks like a photograph. I'm telling you, it's wild! Apparently someone else thinks so too. This piece was on display in the main office at school for about a month and has now been awarded a MN Scholastic Arts Gold Key award! It is currently on display at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in their gallery until February 21st. . After that, if it's selected as one of the top 5 Best of Show the original piece will go to New York for a competition there. If not, a digital copy will be sent for entry into the show, so either way Josh's art is headed for New York! Pretty cool huh?
I'll post photos of whatever I can as soon as he's ready to relinquish them, or we get them back from his art teacher.
Have a great day everybody!
