Trophies for artists

I still haven't downloaded all the pics from carmel so I can write about that... it's been a little hectic of late. So in the meantime, here's something I've been noodling on. One of the things I love about many of the plein air events is that they are most gracious with their awards. While some shows might just have 3 awards, Carmel Arts festival hands out about 20 or so, same with Easton. In order to accomplish this, some fairly niche awards are invented to cover the variety of methods and ways of expression. I love awards and thought about coming up with a few of my own.

For your consideration are:

Best use of blue (self-explanatory)

Most Kick-Ass Female Painter (same here)

Limited Palette Award This one came from John Burton who joked that his was the most limited palette, consisting of Cad Lemon, Cad yellow medium and Yellow Ochre.

Best use of an angel or christian symbol in art I was really looking for a woman in a white dress but couldn't find one in a trophy

The Thomas Hart Benton Award For artists who do the really great agricultural paintings, you know, pretty girl in a white dress collecting flowers at sunset or maybe cows are always good.... chickens count too. Cowboys for sure count but not indians, unless they are on a farm.

Some more nichie categories might be:

The Bunny Best in reproduction award, really more appropriate for the giclee boom when artists and their galleries tried to convince the public that a signed and numbered print with a 1,000 to 10,000 series was worth more than the paper it was printed on. Suckers! If it's one of 50 and it's a hand pulled Rauschenberg, then you are talking valuable, otherwise, no.

Biggest Putz Though I don't know any personally, okay, I met one once, I know they exist. Mostly applies to anyone with an over-inflated ego.

The WTF? Is for what I call head scratcher art. Lots of stuff in New York galleries, for example, that might resemble a 1 story turd or anything that uses piles of salt, menstrual blood or large dead clowns on a floor of broken mirrors and priced in the cool millions (I've seen all of the aforementioned).

Best wiener grab in a 3 dimensional medium Anytime you can put the word wiener in there, it's a gimme.