You Win Some, You Lose Some

The world of art is filled with diverse tastes and preferences, and the real trick as an artist is finding people who click with your particular artistic "voice." This is the hardest part about submitting your art for review: you hope that it will be well received, but if it isn't, you have to buck up and remind yourself that some work aligns with the curator's tastes better than others.

Recently I created an original piece and entered it into the Austin Art Boards competition. Ten winners were selected to have their art enlarged and displayed on giant billboards around town. A couple hundred people entered, and although I wasn't one of the ten who won, I was selected with a small group of "honorable mentions."

Here are the winners:

Austin Art Boards winners 2012

And here is the piece that I entered:

"Rain Dance" by Misha Maynerick Blaise

I worked countless hours on this piece and I really feel like it represents my visual aesthetic. I wanted to make something that would be bold and vibrant on a huge billboard. Austin is at risk for perpetual drought, so I oriented my piece around the journey of rain.  Playing with defined structure as well as loose forms, I painted dots that trace the movement of water from a distant mountain glacier to a final, explosive rain storm. I made the piece by drawing and painting different elements, and then scanning them into my computer and altering them using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

Like everyone who entered the contest, I would have absolutely been thrilled to have my art displayed in a large scale format for the whole city to see. But I am also happy to say congrats to the artists who did win! There is always next year to try again...