Wholly Smoked BBQ

Digital

 

This is one of my favorite "for fun" projects that Dad did. When we moved to South Dakota, we became good friends with our next door neighbors, Ed and Kelly Hagen. Ed started a little side gig when he bought a BBQ smoker trailer that he perfected his cooking on, winning awards locally and not to mention, winning the affection (and appetites) of his friends. He asked Dad if he could create a logo for him, and this is what Dad came up with!

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What I love about it is that in many ways, it's right in Dad's wheelhouse, and I don't just mean the art. Dad was surely really amazing at what I guess you would call this "cartoonish realism," making both human and animal characters look so detailed and real life, but what was also in Dad's wheelhouse was the comic value of it.  Dad had such a wry, witty, and clever sense of humor. Whenever he could, he would entertain himself with little "Easter Eggs" in his works.  

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With this piece, he played off of a lot of the elements to create an overall satisfying art piece. Obviously, Ed set Dad up with the fun play on words of "Wholly/Holy Smoke," and this led to the following clever additions:

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• The pig is a "holy" pig, complete with a halo, angel wings, and of course, sitting on a cloud. But this cloud isn't one from the heavens, but made out of the very smoke from the BBQ pit.

• An additional word play allows the pig to be smoking a stogie, so the pig itself is smoking. Ed also enjoyed cigars, so this was fitting.

• The pig is also branded/tattooed with Porky Pig saying, "Da Da Da Dat's All, Folks!"