Thursday, November 01, 2012

Johnny been good

Oh hey, Ger-die mite. Last week my buddy Dan Petersen and I made a painting for our tutor Jon Campbell, as an attempt to show him our highest appreciation for having been such a great mentor, as well as just a great friend, to us both over the three years of our undergraduate course.

Jon won the Basil Sellers $100,000 art prize this year, and so when deciding what to make him it was pretty obvious we had to have some fun with that. 

Cheque out what we came up with.
I'd always wanted to make a novelty cheque, and as Jon is such a humble guy, the gesture of presenting him with one definitely seemed like the thing to do.

We used the colour scheme from Jon's iconic yeah painting
and based a lot of the framework for our novelty cheque on a variety of other novelty cheques, including my buddy Tom Polo's.
To make our painting a true collaboration, Dan and I took it in turns painting each letter, number and line.

We were working on the tightest of deadlines and so going letter for letter made the painting process about as intimate as it gets.
We presented the cheque to Jon at the end of year Painting Party last Friday. 

When the time was right I called Jon up the front and gave him the distraction present; a large bouquet of Basil. (I offered to sell it to him). During this moment Dan swooped in from the back and we presented Jon with the painting.
(If you look in Jon's hand in the bottom left you can see the Basil Bouquet).

Dan and I are very aware that completing our Bachelor of Fine Arts isn't really the end of anything, only the beginning, and that Jon, one of the most generous and encouraging men I know, will certainly continue to be a great friend and mentor for us throughout the years.

But even still, Jon is a legend and we did want to take a moment to say thanks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Blah, blah, blah.

Is Jon, Is Good.

4 comments:

  1. Congrats on finishing degree...post-grad now or what?

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    Replies
    1. Hey Tina, great to hear from you. The world's my oyster. Although it's too bad I'm not really into seafood.

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  2. " a large bouquet of Basil. (I offered to sell it to him)" is my favourite part.

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