Horse Grazing, oil on canvas made it into the Atlanta Artist Center's current juried show!
Last weekend Joseph Norman, from the University of Georgia, judged the show and I was thrilled to be a volunteer to see the behind-the-scenes of how a judge goes about picking and eliminating art for a show. SO cool!
Every judge has a different process, but this was better than I expected. It was more like a class critique and he really took careful time to observe and to then talk about what worked and did not work for almost every pc of art on display. (The other members kept saying that this was not the usual process and what a treat it was.)
I am not sure how many paintings were submitted, but maybe under 200 and he had to whittle it down to 75. Then he had to pick the best in show followed by a second and third place. Then, honorary mentions, which I believe there were 5. Horse Grazing made it in the show and into the final "room" where he gathered the paintings he was considering for these special honors. Volunteers must be silent and I was holding my breath hoping he would give mine something. Alas, it did not receive a special honor, but I am thrilled it was in close running for one and that it made it in the show.
Afterwards, he asked if any of us had work submitted-that it was killing him to know if he had been discussing our work and not knowing whose piece it was. A few spoke up and then I told him which was mine. SO, he gave me a little further commentary. Mainly to keep the boldness in brushtrokes and that he only wished the trees is the upper right had more detail and that the posts changed colors. Great insight and not something I had realized. It always helps to have another set of eyes point out areas that pop out to them.
