SAFE SEX, hand drawn and painted on Rives paper demonstrates the precision and steady hand of JMe’s early “Character” pieces. The time-consuming energy and the orderly presentation of these geometric compositions evokes a Minimalist proclivity for automatous execution while retaining the handmade element. Thus, the bold Characters (now known as Monosyble or Merge) with the slightly uneven paint strokes create a welcome tension between the mind’s determination to simulate the rigors of an automated devise and the result of the body’s physical effort. In this way, Edwards paintings bypass the inherent opposition between manual and mechanized labor; freely acknowledging the dearth of precision but taking pleasure in a close approximation. As for the decipherment and intention of the piece, it can be read as a whole or as two-word groupings moving forward through the text; Safe Sex, Sex Drive, Drive by and so on. Structured as a Haiku 5-7-5 syllabic notation the “poem” culminates in a somewhat oblique but meaningful resolution.