Art and real estate broker Anna D Smith is using a billboard to advertise her services and to call attention to the work of the California prison artist Donald Hooker who goes by the name C-Note.  the campaign is running through January 31, 2022.  Billboard Insider talked with Smith.

What is the campaign?

I came up with an ingenious way to exhibit art while advertising my web site during the Coronavirus pandemic. Due to Coronavirus health restrictions, most indoor art exhibitions have been prohibited. I have teamed up with California Prison Artist C-Note and using his art work on Billboards with my website information.  I have C-Note’s 2015 work, Colored Girl Warholed, on a Billboard located next to Santana Row  in San Jose, California, also known as Silicon Valley.  This Billboard is about hope and beauty.

You don’t know anyone who is more talented than C-Note! Coronavirus is a once in a life time pandemic and is creating once in a life time opportunities to outsmart the competition, as other artists don’t know what to do about exhibiting their art and retailers struggle to stay in business.

You had some challenges

Challenges that I experienced were finding a third-party vender, cost, securing the location of the billboard, compliance with type of display, and installation delays due to weather conditions.  A last-minute surprise was that I was unable to have a text code that I purchased for the Billboard.I found in obtaining a text code, new FCC regulations made it a 4-month costly process, and they wanted to know the purpose in which the code would be used. I also was made aware that a text code can not be on a billboard in San Jose because the city does not want people driving and texting. I was made aware of this at the time of the installation of the billboard. I was given the option to paint over the text code or face a 5-day installation delay with a new billboard absent the text code. Luckily for me there were no delays in the installation.

Here’s a link to Anna D Smith’s website featuring the billboard and C-Notes work.

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