8th Annual Jersey Shore Juried Art Show

Today was the opening reception for the Belmar Arts Council's 8th Annual Jersey Shore Juried Art Show at the Boatworks. I originally joined the BAC by entering the 2nd Annual Show in 2006, and have been in all of them since. I never take this for granted, because juror decisions are completely subjective, but so far my luck has held. Back in 2007 (3rd Annual) I was awarded the Best In Show for my large woodcut Employee. I've won several other awards at the BAC over the years- category wins, honorable mentions, another best in show in a smaller show, even a 2nd prize for pumpkin carving. I suspected a few days ago that I had won another award for this show (during a stop at the Boatworks I had noticed some post-it notes stuck to my piece, but didn't go over to read them) and then yesterday I got an e-mail confirming there was an award, I guess to make sure I'd show up.

When I got there just before 5 pm, I leaned officially that I did get an award, once again the Best In Show for the big annual exhibition. That's two of those in six years. In both years, the outside jurors who were brought in to judge the show were painters known for large detailed realistic works. I had no contact with either juror before or since, but I'm guessing that each reacted to the level of detail (both in technique and ideas) in my prints, and maybe the perceived difficulty of carving it all into wood. At least that's what everyone I spoke to at the reception was impressed by. And the relative rarity of my medium certainly makes me stand out in this crowd of mostly painters.

Considering how often my work has won awards around there, you'd think that everyone would be thinking about doing some woodcut prints of their own. Anyway, that's what I'm hoping, since I will be scheduling a new series of woodcut classes there in Belmar for early in the summer. The timing is meant to coincide with a demo I'm doing for another regional arts group, but having this prize winning piece up on the walls of our building for another month couldn't hurt.

The show, which has many other fine artworks in it, will be on display during gallery hours (Wednesday to Saturday, 1 to 5 pm) through May 4, 2012.