"The Great American Piggy Bank Stick Up" draws it's inspiration from two very different things. The first is the continued trust or "faith" that we continue to put into technology. Technology that we all see and "bank on" every day. From voice mail beepers to highway toll booths, technology is welcome with open arms, changing and improving our lives. The second is a personal love for traditional stone lithography and how the computer can be integrated into the medium. The "Great American Piggy Bank Stick Up" employs four elements that are presented in a motionless state, as if they were specimens, metaphorically personifying the personal and social "homeostasis" of man and computer. Placed in the lower half and entering the picture frame from the right-hand side is an imaginative stylized grinning pig.

This smiling, nonaggressive "piggy bank" addresses both how reliant and secure we have become with technology and its user friendly facade. Located just above and looking down on the pig, almost in examination, and in a position of deposit, is a computer generated George Washington. This George stands for the idea of monetary and social consequence associated with technology and its maintenance. The last two elements superimposed over the pig are images of Father Flanagan and Red cloud. These images are associated with contrasting cultures and talk to ideas of faith, trust, and common ground. These images are hooked and tied to strings that run through all the elements within the picture suggesting the idea that everything is interconnected.

Brian Kelly received a BFA from Northern Illinois University and a MFA from Louisiana State University. He also received advanced studies at the Tamarind Institute. Kelly's numerous solo exhibitions include: Recent Prints, Baton Rouge Gallery and Recent Lithographs and Drawings, Eastern New Mexico University. He has exhibited in numerous national juried group exhibitions including: the 22nd National Print Biennial, Silvermine Guild Galleries, New Canaan, CT; Contemporary American Printmakers/Renaissance National Exhibition II, Rolling Stone Press, Atlanta; Florida Printmakers Society 7th National Print Exhibition.

He has given numerous workshops on lithography throughout the U.S. and is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Louisiana. His work is in the collections of the Cleveland Institute of Art, New Orleans Museum of Art and the SLT Studio International Print Collection, Slovenia.