Sunday, April 18, 2010

Jury's Top 60 Award....

Out of the 392 paintings selected for Salon International 2010, the Salon International Jury chose what they considered to be the top 60 pieces. My piece "Radiance" was one of the 60 chosen. I considered just getting in this show an award. I don't have the words to express how I feel about being in the top 60. I am thrilled....

"Radiance"

We left for San Antonio about 9am Thursday, the 8th. It took about 8 hours because we wanted to take the back roads. It probably took a couple of hours more than had we gone through Austin, but then again Austin has some of the worst traffic conditions in the country, so who knows. The wild flowers, and especially the blue bonnets, were in full bloom.
There were interesting sights other than the flowers. I do wish I'd taken a picture because we saw "Mater" parked at a gas station in one of the little towns we went through. I'm not kidding! Someone had taken their old pickup and made it look like the character from the movie CARS.

We arrived in San Antonio at the home of our friends about 5pm. For dinner Mike and Elizabeth took us to one of their favorite restaurants. Of course I can't remember the name but they specialize in Persian food. Before the meal they brought out a huge piece of flat bread and a dipping sauce made with spices and olive oil. The spices smelled heavenly. The salads were beautiful and everything tasted wonderful.

The following day we went to the missions. There are a lot of them around San Antonio with remarkable history's. The largest being San Jose. While there, John said he saw a woman over in a corner painting. That perked my interest, but when I looked she was gone. A little while later I saw her so I walked over to say Hi. Life can be so funny. Can you believe it? I knew her and of her. Well, we'd not actually met. She was in charge of bringing artists in to do demos for the Richardson Art Society so we'd exchanged emails. Unfortunately she was out of town when I did my presentation, but just about everyone in the Dallas/FtWorth area knows Cecy Turner. She said she was in town for the Salon International banquet and artists reception. Small world. After exchanging a hug I left and continued to take pictures however very few turned out. The light wasn't great for picture taking but the weather was wonderful for wandering around San Antonio. It was unusually cool which I appreciated very much.

That evening John, Mike, Elizabeth and I went to the awards banquet. This was the first time I'd ever been to the Greenhouse Gallery however I've known about it for years. This is also the first year they'd had the banquet at the Gallery so everyone who attended got to see the show before dinner. They gave us an hour to look then gently prodded us toward our tables. Who cared about eating. I've seen a lot of art shows and all of them are incredible, but I've never seen one that had nothing but oil paintings. There was just something different about it, the paintings seemed to glow. Maybe it was the varnish. Anyway, seeing them for real and not in a magazine or on the internet makes a huge difference. I was impressed. After seeing the quality of the work I was embarrassed. I could not see my work as qualified to hang there with all the rest. I never did get used to it. I also met quite a few people who's names I was familiar with but for some odd reason could not picture their work. Anyway, as I said, who wanted to eat. Surprisingly enough the food was remarkably good. The judge was Everett Kinster. He was a hoot, funny and entertaining. I did not envy him having to pick winners from this show. Not only was it huge and impressive, 392 paintings, but he had to narrow it down to a few. Many of the winners were not there nevertheless the banquet was full to capacity. Whew!

The champagne artist reception was Saturday from 5 to 8. That was fun. The gallery was packed, people were milling around and paintings were selling. One couple bought six that I know of. Who knows where they stopped. Again I met some wonderful people. By 7:30 our friends and my exceptional husband were exhausted, as was I, but they had to drag me out. I still never felt like I saw the whole show.

Sunday morning John loaded the truck then asked the dogs (our Yorkshire Terriers) if they wanted to go home. Bossy Belle insisted, but she's demanding about everything and Bazil in his easy going way had to be helped into the truck. We decided to go through Austin on the way home, we'd seen enough flowers, but it was still early Sunday when we went through. I tell you, I'd hate to see Monday morning on the Austin freeway. We got home at a decent hour but I came down with something Monday and started sneezing my head off. I felt lousy for days. I'm feeling better now, a week later, and it's raining so here I sit. By the way, I'm no longer on the edge, I'm somewhere completely different, and quite frankly, I'm glad to be here.

Hope you are all doing fine and painting happily...