working my way back to yesterday

Ahhhh - spring! This morning's gift from the season gods; a counterpoint to the little green shoots coming up in the patch of dirt outside the front door. Fortunately, the roads were clean and unfortunately, the pretty white clusters were gone by noon. Can't have everything. The local arts association has an annual exhibit and this year they asked me to judge the show. The show was diverse: photographs, mixed media, watercolor, acrylics, and one piece of pottery. Since there was no such thing as apples to apples, I really had a hard time. There were many pedestrian but technically well-executed pictures but that wasn't what I was looking for. In the end I finally picked the three pieces I would most liked to have taken home with me. I took composition into consideration, as well as an original approach to the subject..but primarily, I was looking for something that SPOKE; an image that implied a story -- that had context and a strong viewpoint. I didn't look at how many paintstrokes to the inch or turn the artwork over to look at the back. Nor did I think of asking the question "how'd you DO that?" when I finally meet the artists tomorrow at the opening and give out the awards. First place was easy but 2nd and 3rd were like flipping a coin - it could have gone either way. An interesting experience. Yesterday was a full day. I drove to Judy Langille's for our March Studio Six meeting -- a much needed break from the computer. I had no work to show but did have my piece, My Woods, with me so I could finish putting on the sleeve. This is the piece I donated to this year's Invitational FFAC auction that Virginia Spiegel spearheads to raise money for the American Cancer Society. (click to see what it really looks like). But I digress... Lisa showed us some of the collages she has been working on, and this one is a winner. Joanie brought a couple of her paintings - here she is showing us one of them. Rachel brought her series of three pieces and is discussing two of them. I went directly to the studio after the meeting and spent a couple of hours cleaning up and actually doing some art! I have more pictures but Blogger is being ornery so that must be a sign I should go to bed.