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Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Virginia Commission for the Arts

Got my rejection for the 2004-2005 Fellowships in Painting from the Virginia Commission for the Arts today. The Commission received 104 applications for the four fellowships. The jury panel consisted of the following four Virginia painters.

Steven Kenney (no images available)
Priscilla Treacy
Heide Trepanier
Gayle Paul (no images available)

Not a big fan of Heide's work, I still think it is stylistically too derivative of Inka Essenhigh and Giles Lyon, but I did manage to catch her show at Stux earlier this year and was surprised that it looked a lot better than I had expected. Her wall piece there was better than the wall piece she had at Reynolds Gallery, and whoever hung the paintings did a good job.

I did notice in the sign-in book that her show had also been visited by Roberta Smith and some other big NY reviewing names, but never saw a review. That most be very frustrating for an artist, to see that these people have visited and then wait in vain for a review. But I guess the consolation is knowing they are following your work. I bet her next show in the new Stux space gets some reviews.

Don't know yet who actually won the VA Fellowships in Painting, congratulations to the lucky four! Those who didn't win take heart, not winning doesn't mean your work is no good, only that four people with four very different preferences were able to agree on something else. I do know that in this particular competition if only one of the four panel-members said "no", you were out of the running. You may in fact have had one or two people who felt passionately about your work, but it had to be a decision all four were comfortable with. This often leads to the selection of work everybody likes and nobody loves (or hates). Anybody have a better way?

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