Judge and jury

I spent today jurying a high school art competition at UT-Dallas. Sponsored by the Texas Visual Art Association, it's an annual event in the UT-D gallery. I've done it before, but this year the competition had grown quite a lot over past years' numbers. Over 1400 pieces were submitted. We jurors (Brian Gibb, director of Public Trust Gallery and publisher of Art Prostitute; Liliana Bloch, director of the McKinney Ave. Contemporary; and Margaret Meehan, an active artist currently living in Dallas; and me) whittled the show down to a manageable 170 or so works after hours of viewing and muttering amongst ourselves.

Coincidentally, yesterday I had lunch with a group of artists including Robyn O'Neil who was in my tiny town to jury the student show at her alma mater. I had the pleasure of being her teacher some years back, though I really can't claim to have taught her anything. Robyn is an amazing artist. Here's a picture of one of her drawings:


(click on it to see the full image)

Lunch was wonderful -- great companionship and good conversation that ranged from schemes for financing a trip to Berlin to a YouTube video of Paula Deen losing her pants during a cooking demonstration.