"Apple Works" was created by artist Greg Mort for the Sandy Spring Museum's "Apple Works - A Harvest of Heritage" exhibition. One of the most unique properties of the original watercolor painting is its unusually large scale with an image size of 34" X 45". The artist takes this seemingly traditional image into a clearly contemporary realm with his bold use of primary colors. The viewer is at once confronted by the oversized golden apples set against an electric cobalt blue background. Mort displays his mastery of the media of watercolor as he gives the skins of these apples a reflected light that all but glows.

Cradling the fruit inside an eighteenth century burley maple lap desk the artist brings the past and present together just as the Sandy Spring Museum does for its community. This traditional scene slowly becomes modern and familiar as we recognize that the lap desk is a metaphor for today's laptop computers. Are the apples and parchment real or merely virtual realities?

The original watercolor painting of "Apple Works" is in a private art collection in Maryland. The overall image size of the limited edition four color lithograph of "Apple Works" is 26" X 31". It was printed on museum quality Mohawk Superfine eighty pound paper by the fine artisans of Westland Printers in Burtonsville, Maryland. Each piece is individually hand titled, numbered and signed by the artist. "Apple Works" was published in a limited edition of only two hundred.

Did you notice that the tear drop brass latch at the top of the lap desk is engraved with the letters SSM as the artist's special dedication to the Sandy Spring Museum?