The Smoking Gun
Small Room
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The Smoking Gun

Carol Golemboski

Toned silver-gelatin print, ed. 7

21.75"x17.25"
1 lb

Price


$1500.00
The Smoking Gun
The Smoking Gun Small Room
Several pictures in this series were derived from magic trick descriptions in vintage “how to” books. In this case, the magician wipes the inside of a dome with ammonia and then places it on a piece of glass with a drop of hydrochloric acid. Once the two chemicals meet, they form smoke. To perform the trick, the magician shoots a blank out of a gun at the dome, removes the handkerchief that covers it, and smoke appears inside. I began this picture in the summer of 2012 just before the theater shootings in Aurora, Colorado. After that horrible event, I put the picture aside, troubled by the photograms of toy guns I had tacked to the wall of my studio. I resumed work on the image in the fall of 2012, coincidentally, not long before Sandy Hook. It’s an example of how emotional events can alter the meaning of an image, even for the artist.
Carol Golemboski

Carol Golemboski. Lakewood, CO

Artist Statement

Carol Golemboski photographs antiquated objects in carefully staged scenes. Her haunting still life imagery draws upon past eras to suggest human emotions and anxieties, particularly relating to the experience of women. Shooting with film and manipulating traditional photographic materials in the darkroom, Golemboski creates images where photography and drawing blur the line between fact and fiction.

Best advice you’ve been given • Work begets work. When experiencing a creative block, do something—anything, even if it’s awful. The mere act of making work, no matter what it is, generates new ideas.

Goals/Aspirations • Pursue all of those ideas that, as of yet, only exist in my imagination.

Favorite artist • Joseph Cornell and photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard. I’m equally inspired by writers, many of my pictures include direct references to passages and phrases from favorite stories and poems.

What are you reading • A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley, it’s about an eleven-year-old girl who practices chemistry and solves murder mysteries.

Hope to learn how to • Write a novel.

You spend a lot of time thinking about • Whatever my latest obsession is, an idea for a photograph, my kids’ school projects, the garden. I tend to fixate on one thing, pouring all of my energy into it.

Favorite musical artist • Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone - most frequently played in my darkroom - The Very Best of Nina Simone 1967-1972—Sugar in my Bowl, Volume 2).

What do you do when not creating art • Teaching, tending to the business side of art, spending time with family, cooking, and gardening.

Other Work by the Artist

Hat Trick

Hat Trick

Carol Golemboski

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Parlor Tricks

Parlor Tricks

Carol Golemboski

$1500.00

Trompe l’Oeuf

Trompe l’Oeuf

Carol Golemboski

$1200.00

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