I went to a student juried art exhibit. There were lots of pieces of artwork in this show, one of them was my own and some of my friends entered artwork as well. Some of my favorite things from the show were some sculptures made out of clay. There were some honorable mentions and a grand prize of $500. The winner of the show, chosen by an invited juror was Evan Brown who entered a Plein air landscape painting. Seeing Evan win was really exciting because he is one of my friends and I have been in many classes together with him because we have the same major. I enjoyed seeing so many different things in the show. Originally I had planned to enter something completely different to the show than what I actually did. I had a series of symbolic paintings that I had planned to paint for this show but I never had the chance to complete them, so I entered a singular painting that I had done in a previous class. I actually had not planned to enter a painting at all after realizing I would not be able to follow through with my original idea, but then I was prompted by an old professor to enter something I’d done already. He mentioned how much he liked my fish painting when he’d seen it in my studio and I ended up entering it. It didn’t win any prizes or anything but it did get on the wall. At the show, the professor that told me to enter it told me that his 3 or so year old daughter loved fish and he wanted to go and show her. I was excited to hear that, but I was leaving the show when I ran into him. I wish I had gone with him and his family to look at my painting and see how his young daughter reacted to it. I can just imagine how my heart might’ve soared with pride seeing her Bambi eyes light up just to see some fish. I wish I had gone because the reason I want to make art is because I want it to mean something to someone and if I had just seen that little girl point at my painting and say, “fish!” Then I think it would mean enough to me that it had that one small impact in that one small moment.
