The Watercolor Society of Oregon held their annual Spring Convention April 13-15. I was involved as the Vice President of the organization and was pleased to have my painting, River Strata, juried into the show of 80 paintings. I was secretly hoping that my piece would make it into the top 20 award winning paintings that go on state-wide tour, but the competition is strong, and I've only been in the top 20 once before.
Imagine my amazement when my painting was awarded the top prize, "Best of Show," by the Juror Carla O'Conner. I feel deeply honored, dizzily happy, and pinch-ably surprised in receiving this award. To all the other WSO artists in the show, your beautiful paintings make my award very meaningful, because all the paintings were wonderfully creative and thoughtfully rendered.
If you live in the Portland area, the show will be at the Oregon Society of Artists Building, 2185 Southwest Park Place, Portland, OR 97205. The gallery is open Tues.-Sat. afternoons.
As if this wasn't enough, I also had my painting, Rogue Heron, in the Western Federation of Watercolor Societies show at Las Vegas at the same time. Rogue Heron was awarded the Mary "Betts" Baepler Award, with a "Certificate of Recognition for an exceptional water media painting," by Juror Gerald Brommer. With that came an amazingly large ribbon. (You need to know how enormous our cat is to truly appreciate the size of this ribbon!)
Imagine my amazement when my painting was awarded the top prize, "Best of Show," by the Juror Carla O'Conner. I feel deeply honored, dizzily happy, and pinch-ably surprised in receiving this award. To all the other WSO artists in the show, your beautiful paintings make my award very meaningful, because all the paintings were wonderfully creative and thoughtfully rendered.
If you live in the Portland area, the show will be at the Oregon Society of Artists Building, 2185 Southwest Park Place, Portland, OR 97205. The gallery is open Tues.-Sat. afternoons.
As if this wasn't enough, I also had my painting, Rogue Heron, in the Western Federation of Watercolor Societies show at Las Vegas at the same time. Rogue Heron was awarded the Mary "Betts" Baepler Award, with a "Certificate of Recognition for an exceptional water media painting," by Juror Gerald Brommer. With that came an amazingly large ribbon. (You need to know how enormous our cat is to truly appreciate the size of this ribbon!)
My friend Ruth Armitage attended the convention in Las Vegas and took this picture for me. Rogue Heron is hanging bottom row, second from the left.
Following the WSO convention in Portland, came a workshop taught by Carla O'Conner. I was lucky enough to be one of the 20 folks in her workshop. She is such a creative and talented painter that I was really inspired to try some new things and continue to take risks.
What was a totally unexpected upshot of winning the top honors at the show, was that I now feel a pressure to live up to that level of competence and creativity in my future work. I'm sure I'll have more to say about that in upcoming posts.
8 comments:
Congratulations Margaret! I know you work hard at your painting and I couldn't be more pleased for you!
Margaret!! Congratulations! Well deserved. The heron series is inspired..The connections to the Rogue come through in your colors and composition and lift the painting above others created out of whole cloth, so to speak, without such inspiration. Beautifully done.
Off to Spain today for 2 weeks of looking at paintings and architecture and eating great food.
Hasta la vista, baby! Julie
If you truly feel pressure to live up to the Best of Show award...don't. Isn't art really and truly about the process...the wonderful journey?
Making art has been an unexpected and enriching chapter of my life. I believe the best part of my journey has been the friends I have made. Yes, I love to create a worthy painting but I love it when my friends do too.
xo Linda
Sincere congratulations, Margaret! Looking forward to seeing your glowing face on Friday.
Marilyn
Margaret, you are having such a fabulous time with your art. Winning "best in the show" is wonderful icing on your cake. Enjoy every moment.
Petie
BEST OF SHOW! Wow, how wonderful.
Congratulations,
Janet
WHOPPEE!! That is so exciting, Margaret! All of your hard work and perserverence is bearing fruit! I understand that you are also in the May showing at EAC.
Marline
Hi, Margaret:
Sharon let us know your grand news and today we received your blog. It’s tremendous how you have “followed your art”, as Paul says. Not many artists have been able to do that. We do enjoy seeing the steps as you work through processes to end up with fine paintings. Many congratulations on the award for your great painting.
Cheers,
Pat and Paul
Post a Comment