Art Jerk

To celebrate today’s release of my chapbook Charactered Pieces: stories from OW Press, I am going to get a bit ego-y and discuss my own work. Artjerk was set up to do just that, let us jerks discuss our own pieces (as well as the pieces of others, sure), but I’ve been hesitant to do that so far because most of my art is of the written variety. But sometimes, I get a bit graphic, as evidenced by the above cover design.

I’ve always liked the enlarge-it-until-it’s-interesting approach to composition. Finger = boring. Full-frame cuticle = interesting. So, taking the content of a specific story in Charactered Pieces—a woman who has a fetus-in-fetu foot protruding from her gut—I enlarged a sketched fetus foot to crowd the frame. I then worked in a color scheme that hints at comfort (motherhood also plays an important role in the story), but shocks with just enough contrast. Finally, I top and bottom the pane with solid bars to keep the image from spilling off the canvas.

The result is (hopefully) an initially discomforting image that slowly draws some sympathy, and eventually empathy from the viewer. At least enough to get the viewer to open the book.

Also, if you cover up the lower third of the image (to just below the ball of the foot) the figure kinda looks like a chick with a dick.

Visit the artist
Caleb J Ross

Buy the book
from OW Press (the publisher)