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Monday at the Society

MARCH 11, 2009
My two pieces in the show.
Monday the 9th was a busy day at the Society for me but when I got there, I bee-lined it into the gallery to take a look at the Advertising/Institutional show.  I wasn’t able to get to the opening because I’ve been battling a nasty cold for the last week which today, I am finally able to breathe out of one nostril.  A small miracle indeed.
I am proud to be part of such amazing shows at the Society and congratulations to all my friends who were accepted into the show and walked out with various medals!  Yay!  (Clapping!)
A view of the work to be judged from the stage.
Then I had to head up stairs to the restaurant to do my annual chairing responsibilities to award the monetary awards for the 2009 Student Scholarship Competition.  Every year, I am stunned by the work submitted.  It might sound cliché, but I am going to put my foot down and say that there wasn’t a single piece I looked at that I felt that was really flawed in any way.  As a matter of fact, all of the judges spent a significant amount of time looking at all the artwork before I started giving them instructions to start isolating their top picks for the awards.  After that, it took just as long for a juror to select the first painting to be put in the judging pile!  All the jurors seemed perplexed.  How could they “possibly pick one or two of these pieces?  They’re all so wonderful!” a couple noted to me as I walked among them.
Judges Charles Hively taking the process very seriously and Leo Espinosa and Geoffrey Moss discussing....how they can get their hands on the scholarship money.
This year the process went very smoothly and the jurors were very serious and intent on picking the best pieces for the awards.  This year’s awards are of landmark amounts.  We have 33 total monetary awards from $250 up to two $5000 awards.  The total cash awards are $54,250!  Plus we gave away a 7 week and a 1 week Illustration Academy Award and Master Class Program for Science Fiction and Fantasy artists.  Finally, something new this year:  In talks with Dick Blick Artist Materials, we are able to give every student that actually got into the show a $50 gift certificate with Dick Blick donating $1500 toward this!  So every student walks away with something.  Total awards going out this year including the gift certificates: $59,000!  Yowza!
Friday, May 8th, 6PM is the opening and Awards Gala at the Society of Illustrators and it is free to attend.  As usual, all are invited: professionals, students, art directors and the general public.  As a note, this show is going to look amazing partially because of the new walls at the Society but with that, I’ve instituted that all artwork for this show must be professionally framed.  In the past, only matting or mounting was required.  Many judges commented yesterday on how professional the work looked.  It’ll be saa-weet!
Go to www.soicompetitions.org to view the winning entries.
Judges looking at the selected few that were up for the $5000 awards.
On another parallel note:
Randy Gallegos, one of the jurors for this year’s competition, has spent some time writing up his experiences about actually judging the competition on his own blog.  For the students that come around here to Drawger and enter the Student Competition, he gives some wonderful insight and his views on the art, the process, fairness and quality of the work being submitted.  And photos!
His experiences are in two parts:
Round One Judging
Round Two Judging
Photo Courtesy of Mark Korsak - Judges doing their job.
I would like to thank all 25 jurors that took the time to help judge this amazing competition and would like to congratulate all the students that were accepted and awarded.
I look forward to May 8th when I am standing up on stage calling out names and shaking the hands of all the students that were awarded.  This money could really help jump start a career.
 
Becca Green $5000 In Memory of Arthur Zankel
See the rest of the show here: Society Competitions!
Topical: Things I Paint  
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