Ars Longa 007
Title: Thought and Memory Bookmark; Size: 2×6; Media: Paper, acrylic paint, ink, silk crepe
This piece was made for a show called “The Bookmark Show”, hosted by One Cool Word Magazine, which probably no longer exists. It turned out to be a very small show, 5 pieces – maybe fewer – of interesting tiny art, some of it dimensional. My piece was flat, but oriented landscape rather than portrait; I have never been one for following instructions, and nor are those artists who contributed dimensional work.
I had just had some work (a version of Pender Street, Midwinter) in The Pocket Show (a benefit for Red Gate Studio). The show had opened at 7 pm, and I had arrived at 7:30 pm, and I’d just said hello to Carol and Carola, some artists I’d met a few weeks earlier, when Carola said, “Your piece just sold,” and the women who’d bought it was one of the daughters of Carol Nottingham, an artist who works a lot with the idea of crows.
She, Carol’s daughter, was so, so happy with the work, and I was so, so happy that it had sold. It was my first actual sale, and that it had sold so quickly led me to consider that my work was worthy, that people liked it, and that the idea of making art-making a bigger part of my life than it was might not be completely misguided.
By the time I saw the posting for The Bookmark Show, I had decided that it art-making was what I should do, and this bookmark was born, and I loved it.
I don’t know what happened to my Thought and Memory Bookmark. I had given it to One Cool Word outright; it was supposed to have been sold in a silent auction to benefit the magazine. I hope it was sold, I hope that someone else loved it enough to buy it. I never heard, so it is now just a thought and a memory.
