Drying Prints

Half of the prints I created this week are dry enough to hang now. I am curing the ink before trimming them.  The looked so beautiful hanging that I needed to create a post about them.

Article in Star Phoenix Bridges

Here is a link to the my recent cover story in the Star Phoenix Bridges Newspaper

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/bridges/Martin+endless+source+artistic+output/10314422/story.html

Printing the Bee Panels

It was a huge studio day. Every available surface is covered in prints of bees. It was an exhausting but rewarding day. 124 prints of bees. Although tomorrow I may purge a few. I am sure I will be a little stiff tomorrow because of all the rolling but art as exercise was super fun. I love my new roller.

It's A Shoe In

New Exhibition going up this week.

It's A Shoe In

Affinity Gallery, Saskatoon
Opening Reception Saturday, November 1 from 7:00--9:00
Exhibition run October 24 - November 29, 2014

It’s a Shoe In – Success is for Sale

Monique Martin

Clay, glaze, paper and plastic

This old phrase “It’s a Shoe In”, historically refers to the horse races where a horse was a sure bet. In thinking about this and the prizes given to award winning horses, the ribbons and medals, I was inspired to produce this small series called “Success is for Sale”. 

To be an award winner takes money. Not just the horse races but also any sort of athletics or career.  At the same time as thinking about buying success I was researching Affluenza for a different body of work and found a connection between Affluenza and being “a shoe in”.  Those with money are buying their way in. Any success costs money, many people never reach their goals or dreams because the financial cost is too much.

Success is for sale in this time in history, major athletes are buying various performance enhancing drugs, bribing judges, quitting work to train full time, having personal trainers, massage therapists, spending money to be in the right circle of friends and hiring psychologists, is just a small list of the costs of success. Being an Olympian or bringing home an Olympic medal costs money. The more money spent, the more medals is often the story we hear in the news (Own the Podium program).

This series replicates a store shelf but “success” is for sale.  It is for sale for all those suffering from Affluenza, Kalopsia, as well for parvenus and arrivists. The QR codes are real, as are the UPC codes. Scan the UPC code and the product numbers spell “Success is for Sale”. Scan the QR codes and you are linked to a webpage about the series and links to instances where “Success has been purchased”. 

Hexagons with the Greater Saskatoon Catholic School Students

It was a busy week for me. I worked with 135 students over two days to create over 920 hexagons for the "We Are Linked" project. The hexagon clusters are due to go in the trees in early December and the opening reception is January 10th.

The schools involved were: Bishop Pocock, St Edward, St. Gerard, Cardinal Leger, St. Marguerite and St. Philip Students as leaders/teachers.

Some of the images from our creation time are below. Thanks to all of the teachers, parents and St. Philip School students for helping out it was a lot of fun.

Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan Playbill being Published in a Book

I had an interesting email in my inbox recently. Here is part of it....

In honor of the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's passing, Steve Heller and Mirko Ilic? are creating a book that showcases poster design work for the bard's many plays. 

We'd like to invite you to contribute to our book and submit the attached poster. Our book will include 1200-2000 Shakespeare posters from around the world and will be published by Princeton Architectural Press.

The playbill they are interested in is mine.