Entering any art prize is a leap of faith and belief in what you are capable of. You are putting yourself out there to be judged by others. Not only the actual judges but by your friends and community. Will they like the painting? Will they say "how the heck did this one win?" I have done that myself. Wondered what judges thought about a certain work that made it the best.
The painting above was my entry into the Grassland Art Prize (GAP). It was the inaugural for the gallery. It had awesome sponsors and a lovely prize money pool and yet I wasn't going to enter it. Loads of reasons why I told myself, then my dads nursing home called me and said he was dying. I had to drop everything and go to Brisbane to be with dad while he slipped from this world. I couldn't paint then. I had nothing in me but grief. I then got an email from a friend telling me to enter the GAP. She insisted that I just paint something. I had a week before the closing deadline but how could I. I was dealing with death and had no art supplies. My amazing husband then came to the rescue with a run to an art supply shop and a few hours later I was sitting at my son's dining table painting.
The GAP entry required a small square piece of art around the theme "View Through my Window." What could I paint in the middle of funerals and sadness. Then it came to me. Like a flash. When dad was alive, I had taken him to Winton to help me prepare for a big photoshoot for a designer from Sydney later in the year. He had loved the colours of the outback and the views from the different places we stopped along the way. I had taken photos of these views and these were our memories. This painting is one of those views. I paint in oil, and loosely. I can't ever be called a realist artist. I paint the colours and shapes and I love the trees in the outback. They speak to me; and I heard dad speaking to me while I painted this and entered in the GAP.
And it won. Dad's window view. My outback. It won.
Huge thank you to the sponsors and to the Grassland Art Gallery and thank you dad.
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