Coasters

 Since absolutely everybody reads this blog faithfully and remembers everything I say here, you will of course know that my dearest dream once was to make art for record album covers.  Record album covers (that is cardboard covers for collections of music recorded on large vinyl disks,) have gone largely the way of my dreams.  They haven't vanished, but have become much more rare, and are cherished out of proportion to their value or content.  

Many years later, as I may or may not have mentioned here, I settled on a new dream of doing art for beer packaging.  I quite like beer, and I have observed that beer labeling and packaging often displays art that is  delightfully colorful, whimsical and evocative.  I read stories of amateur artist friends of microbreweries designing beer packaging.  I even imagined names for beer which I might illustrate.  All amounting to naught, at least so far.  There are also coasters for beer.  One of my sons started collecting beer coasters, and I learned that traveling firefighters also liked to collect them.  Beer coasters became free souvenirs of my travels and drinks.  

I eventually learned that there is an art show that features art done exclusively on coasters; I believe it has given rise to a few other such shows.  Starting last year, I participated in the coaster show.  I will do so again next month.  What is very cool about the show is that it's this kind of no-holds-barred show, with art of every ilk - cute, raunchy, figurative, abstract expressionist, what have you.  The only thing the pieces have in common is that they are the size and shape of beer coasters.  And there is a ton of them.  I mean, when ever can you see a gallery show with between 700 and 1000 individual pieces of art?

A plug for Gallery 30 South, 30 S Wilson Ave, Pasadena, CA 91106, Coaster Show 2020, running October 5–30, 2020, to coincide more or less with Oktoberfest.