Ode to the Artists Representative
By Elvis Swift
The artist paints as passions plea,
their art surrounds us daily.
Upon the walls and goods galore,
whose works displayed so gaily.
How did it get on walls and things
once there to shine so bright?
Did chance alone without some help
get works placed in the light?
T’was no turn of fate the art’s displayed,
presented in its grandeur.
The art rep or the agent named
worked hard to get it put there.
We were digging through a drawer in the studio this morning and unearthed a roll of registration mark tape. My first thought was ‘so that’s where those went.’ My second thought was ‘when was the last time I needed these’? Holding them in my hand caused me to recount many years of art creation, preparing multiple layers on drawings with sheets of rubylith cut for each color, carefully applying the registration targets so that each color fit the picture as designed. I would often purposely shift the layers so that the colors would print miss-registered giving the appearance of a quick print job without proper registration. The proof would sometimes come back to me before going to press with the concern that no matter how hard they tried, the art would not accurately align because the marks were positioned incorrectly. Those were the days when the workflow included many people providing various services for the completion of a single graphics project. The registration mark is very much in use today when offset printing, but now, of course, the placement is provided electronically. Oh, you can still position your layers for the off-register effect, and it will sometimes drive the printer crazy.
You can live a long time and still run into stuff you’ve never heard of. Such is the case for us with ‘Roy G. Biv’ or ‘Roygbiv’. Overhearing this word mentioned, it sounded as though it was a person’s name. Indeed as it turns out, some have assumed it as their moniker, and others have named endeavors by this acronym. As you roll your eyes at us for our lack of knowledge, the meaning of Roygbiv is all the colors of the rainbow.
R – Red
O – Orange
Y – Yellow
G – Green
B – Blue
I – Indigo
V – Violet
There you have it, all the colors of the rainbow.
Have you heard of ‘Cosplay’? Cosplay is a very popular pastime enjoyed by many people around the world. In a nutshell, Cosplay involves dressing up to look like your favorite Comic, Anime, Manga character – the name combines the words ‘Costume’ and ‘Play’ – Cosplay.
Behold the photograph accompanying our text. At first glance, one might think that this is a vintage picture of a hapless explorer or company scout sometime in the 1800’s. But look a little more closely, and the whole scene begins to unwind.
It turns out this an early example of Cosplay, a picture of J.A. Molloy, Artist, masquerading as a Lewis & Clark explorer type, photographed by Paul Shambroom.
Mr. Molloy had in the previous year (1990) produced a mountain of Journal art, wood and linoleum cuts, steel engravings and various historical reproductions of American Indian artifacts. All for the filming of ‘The Song of Sacajawea.’ A children’s storybook classic video produced by Rabbit Ears Productions, with narration by Laura Dern along with music by David Lindley. Throughout the endeavor, the project got the better of him, and he slowly morphed into the form of the fellow in the picture. Indeed he is as we have coined him the ‘Cosplay Pioneer.’
