Sunday, September 9, 2012

Art vs. Art



Saturday morning, I went downtown to participate in 
"Art vs. Art"a competition in which paintings are pitted
in a winner-take-all format. The winning artist will receive
$4 thousand, and the losing paintings will be ground
to dust if buyers can't be found who are willing 
to pay a minimum $50 for each painting.


The vast majority of the competitors looked young 
enough to be my children. A few even brought children
of their own. The young woman next to me brought 
her young daughter, who sat patiently 
playing video games on her mom's cell phone.
The painting "arena," was the mezzanine 
of the City Market. The entrants were dispersed 
all over the area,which had been draped 
in plastic for the occasion.  


Artists were only allowed to use materials supplied 
by the organizer:an 18" x 24" canvas panel; 
four paintbrushes of varying sizes; five colors of 
acrylic paint - red, yellow, blue, black, and white.
Once each canvas was numbered and signed in, artists had
four hours in which to create their masterpieces.


 I worked quietly, trying to be good because
all the plastic made me feel as though I was working on
a class project. When I turned in the results of my efforts,
I had a bit of separation anxiety, not knowing whether
"Too Many Suns: SPF 50" will find a new home, 
or be ground into dust.

4 comments:

dive said...

"Starry starry day."
I like that a lot, Speedway, particularly the hidden door. Where does it lead?

Speedway said...

The door leads to more of the same, Dive.

I've been involved in my boat project and, when I entered Art vs Art, I had no idea what I would paint. I got out my sketchbook, looked through a few of the pages on my way downtown, said "that one," than painted a bunch of circles with a border, which I attempted to break up. Poof, you saw a door.

Thank you, as always, for your nice words.

neetzy said...

They better not ground it to dust! I see you also like swirling vortexes!

Speedway said...

Thank you, Neetzy. Beginning next week, you can go to the link I've included to vote for up to three entries. There's an explanation of the process by which the winner is selected. I'll either win or be ground to dust. Maybe someone will be kind and buy it. When you see the other entries you'll understand what I mean when I tell you my painting was very different than any of the others I saw. I was very surprised.