Competitions and fine print

[Karin Wells]

Sometimes judges can be blind....and here's a story that really bugged me once...

Several years ago I was in a juried show. I was ignored by the judges when they handed out the prizes. However, at the end of the show, I did win the "People's Choice" award by an overwhelming majority. Also, my painting was the only one out of the entire show that sold!

The next year, they used my "People's Choice" painting for the cover of the invitation to the show...BUT the jury rejected my work and I couldn't even get into the show that year. Rats.

I had entered the painting "Zabie" and two weeks after my failure to get into the show, I won First Prize at the 1999 PSOA Competition with that same painting...go figure.

I recall that some of the pieces of "art" that were in that show (that I couldn't get into) was a 6 foot plastic moose in a red fireman's suit.

Another "work of art" was a bird's nest made out of fuzzy fabric scraps with 3 large spray painted plastic eggs (from l'eggs pantyhose) in it. The "eggs" were broken open to reveal little magazine cutouts of old movie stars in them. Clever, eh? That silly dang thing won a prize.

These things are to "art" like the eyechart is to "literature."

Life isn't fair and I doubt that I will ever see the current standards of art change much in my lifetime...drat it all.