2023 Tournament of Art

 March madness has crept upon us again, and tonight was the annual selection show that goes with it, where all the schools invited to appear in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament are named and seeded. It is my custom on that day to make my own list of all the schools from that list that are also places I have had some kind of art involvement- a collection, an exhibition, a publication, a teaching job, etc.  I always have some, but this year it's a very short list.  I had some schools that were in contention, but they all lost too many games down the stretch, or to the wrong teams, or both.  In the end I have two.  Here they are in chronological order of my links there:

#9 seed University of Illinois- When I was in grad school at Southern (as it's referred to in that state), we had an exchange exhibition with U of I, and I showed the recently completed Fourth of July series, mounted to foam core sheets.  Probably for the best, as I was given a brick wall to hang it on, and one with  power strips and light switches mounted on it.  Luckily I was able to get a knife and cut my backing apart to work around those obstacles, and attach the separated pieces to the wall out of sequence.  

#7 seed Northwestern University- A juried show for college students in Illinois, and they accepted one of my saint prints.  A long ride from Carbondale, but an excuse to visit my cousin who lived in a town surrounded by nearby Chicago, which also gave me a place to crash that night.  Many of my fellow grads at my school submitted entries, and I think four of us were accepted.  

And that's all for this year.  As is also my custom, on each weekend I'll post updates as to how my schools are doing.  Based on the seeds, they are not expected to do well, but stranger things have happened.