Lara's Adventures at the Art Show at the Dog Show

Juried exhibitions -- the bane of all artists! Acceptance into these shows looks good on a CV, as do winning awards at such shows. Rejection, however, inevitably brings up questions and often bruised egos! The bottom line is that the process is completely subjective, and if one is going to enter juried shows, one has to learn not to take it too personally! Certainly there is always room for improvement, so it's important to evaluate and see what one could do better, but sometimes it's just a matter of the entries just not fitting into a particular show, or something else along those lines.

This year, my timing meant I only managed two entries for the Art Show at the Dog Show, held each year in Wichita, Kansas. The adventure started with the slides. As I was under a deadline crunch (me? Nooo, never!) I decided to try out slides.com to produce the slides for my entry. I had heard good things about them. My luck, I catch them in the middle of a crisis of some sort, and my order got misplaced or lost! Thanks to the help and persistence of fellow artist and friend Kimberly Santini, we managed to get the slides to the show organizers on time! It was a little tense there for a while!

After the slides go in (and yes, despite the world of digital, many art shows still require slides for the jurying process), it's time for the waiting. This show is very good, the timeline is pretty short, so it is only a couple of weeks before the answers come back! Of my two entries, the one depicting my friend's Brittany pup, Lara, was accepted, while a little oil pastel of a Jack Russell didn't make the cut. So off I went with Lara (the painting) to the framer.

"Okay, we need something that will get it an award!" I said. "No pressure!"

Okay, so I was kidding. Sort of. I knew it wasn't Best of Show material, but there were awards for Best Entry Depicting a Puppy, and Best Entry Depicting a Brittany, so I can dream! I picked her up the next day, got her all wrapped and ready to ship over the weekend, and sent her off via Canada Post Xpresspost. Always stressful putting artwork in the mail! But delivery conformation let me know she arrived, at least! No news is good news I guess, as the show organizers weren't contacting me telling me it had been damaged!

News travels fast through our network of horse artists at the EAG, most of whom do other animals as well. The list of awards circulated via email before anything was going to reach me through snail mail! And the little Brittany did it, she got the Best Britt award, very exciting. But more exciting was a fellow EAGer getting the Best in Show, as well as two other awards for her beautiful portrayal of an aging Pug, "Sundowner." Be sure to check out the award-winners at the site for the Art Show at the Dog Show. If they're not up yet, they should be soon. Congrats to Christine (Collier-Trevino) on an amazing accomplishment!!

Just FYI -- my Britt painting is titled "Hardwired", and it is a 12 x 10 oil on canvas. Now she just needs a new home!