Postcards By My Desk: An Artist Feature

I have been trying to think of a creative way to promote the artist I like. Like is such a good, simple word even if Facebook has usurped its meaning. I feel a connection and a warm feeling when looking at the work whatever the subject matter-- comforting or disturbing. I finally just started looking around my desk. At work, I hang up family pictures, phone lists, drawings but also postcards with images or projects that I do not want to forget. Despite the fact that I recycle almost every item I can, I still love the consumption of paper products for images, and of course books. I confess I love letters and postcards, and as many of my personal friends and family will note, I do not send them enough. I love to get them in the mail. It might harken back to my brief time in college in England when I would run down every day to see if there was a card or package on the table for me. If a box arrived, I was delighted to get my next shipment of grits from South Carolina. Most of all, I looked from cards that said love Mama, Dad and Mama Jo. There is something comforting about holding that paper in your hands and reading the words that a special person chose to write to you. Thus my love for paper, images and written word continues. 

Postcard, Nadine Boughton

Back side postcard, Nadine Boughton (complete with Scotch tape)

I meet many artists at portfolio reviews and I attempt to contain all the faces, personalities and images in my head. It is an overwhelming task especially for a feeble brain with horrible memory retention. Although many cards that I get at the event and as a follow up do not contain special notes or the signing off with a closing such as "Love, reviewee", I still want to keep them because of an image contained on the front. At Photolucida 2010, I met Nadine Boughton. Boughton's work incorporates images that she appropriated from men's adventure magazines from mid-century. The women are shown in as bosom bearing, sexy seductresses often in need of rescue and the men are often fighting off other men or some sort of wild beast, but most of the action is set in a domestic setting like you would see on the set of The Brady Bunch. Although Nadine and I may be of a different generation, the work makes me think of the days playing with our Barbie and Ken dolls calling them names like Samantha and Todd and dreaming up scenarios where we are often the damsel in need of rescue from distress. I just look at Boughton's photo and say "fight that jaguar, honey". You can do it. Boughton creatively uses images from suburban cultural history to bring to attention to how these male/female roles have or have not changed today.