The Award Show

So you’ve decided that the show is up and you’ve seen as much as you want to see, so when is the next show?

Have you forgotten one little thing? There’s a People’s Choice Award to be awarded and you are the awarder? That’s right, you. If you think that a show without a jury is just a beauty contest then it probably is. If the serious, committed artists of the community sit idly by and don’t vote or don’t return to vote then it almost certainly will be a beauty contest won by the beauty who can bully, threaten and force all of their friends and family into the museum to vote.

Winner and still champion, the guy with the biggest family.

Is that what you want, the biggest show of the season, the most diverse and complex showing of art in the South Coast won by ballot stuffing?

If you don’t want that to happen why are you reading this when you could be at the Coos Art Museum voting? Vote, it is the right and duty of every person and unlike the political arena, there wondrous things to vote for. All you have to do is pick one.

There are just too many to pick one! I know too many people in the show I wouldn’t want to offend anyone by voting for just one. I don’t have time to study the entries and make an informed decision.

So you’ll let an uninformed opinion rendered by someone who doesn’t know any of the artists, made by closing their eyes and pointing get the private show?

There is great art, there are great artists, there is great variety and great diversity and all you have to do is vote. Vote for someone you know, vote for someone you like, vote for a piece which makes you dumb with its brilliance, but vote.

Vote for Susan Lehman, Kelle Herrick, Pat Snyder, Mike Holm, Kimberly Wurster, S. L. Donaldson if you prefer well known artists, or vote for the unknown like me if that makes you feel like you’ve been resourceful, vote for Jardin Kazar, maybe he’ll bribe you with food, vote for a photograph, a painting, a sculpture, a portrait, a nude, a mask, just vote.

This is the largest open show on the South Coast, artists plan for a full two years to prepare their pieces for this show. Make its winner worthy of all of the hope, planning and skill, vote for your favorite; make the People’s Choice Award really the choice of the people.