Thursday 8 December 2015, 3.30pm
I’ve spent the last four days working on an obsessive
graphite drawing (on a gesso panel). It’s an idea that’s been simmering for a
few years, and then on Saturday on the way home from Texas, I spotted an old
advertising sign for sale in Warwick. It was just right for my devious purpose.
I’d been thinking (as a smoker) how attitudes to cigarettes
had changed over the years. In the 50’s, if you went to a social gathering you
were considered unsociable if you didn’t smoke. Hosts would stock up on fags,
even if they didn’t smoke themselves. Strangers would offer one as a sign of
friendliness, assuming, like most people, that you smoked. Now we have plain
packaging and the social shunning of smokers. Social Norm to social outcast in
50 years.
This is the result of my musings.
“Smoke Signals”
900x600 8/12/2015
Some details –
No animals were harmed in the making of this artwork, but I
probably infringed a few copyrights. It’s been fun taking the piss out of the
wowsers.
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