Deadlines

The deadline is tomorrow!

That's right, if you haven't prepared your entry for the Western Oregon Regional, you are...okay, not completely out of luck, but close.

Why haven't you? I know the motorcycle show at the Coos Art Museum has taken up all of your time. (It certainly has mine) I know you've got to get down to Bandon to see the new show at Sage Gallery, the Meet and Greet at Second Street, the Boardwalk Bunnies and the Sit Stay show. So what else is your excuse?

All of those things are important, (Me, I'm glued to the television to see if Megan Rapinoe, the Wizard of WOW can spark one more win for the U. S. Women's World Cup team. {Sunday 11:00 AM Pacific on ESPN2}) , but so are keeping up your opportunities.

I'm not ready, I don't have anything, I'm too rushed, all good excuses. Here's the problem with good excuses, they don't get awards. You get noticed, noticed by people with money in their pockets, people who buy art, people who know people who buy art, by entering and sometimes winning these art shows. It is sad. An artist should be accorded fame, fortune, and a lifestyle of the rich and shameless on the basis of vision, creativity, their own personal style.

Unfortunately, as much as I love our U.S. Women, (And will follow them win or lose, sweet success or bitter disappointment), if they don't win Sunday, they'll be just a window history has closed as it races on through time. That's what happens when you don't enter a show, especially a show like the Western regional. You become a closed window.

Have you been taking your art to Easy Lane Frames and Select Gallery and having Ken Snoody make Giclee prints so that you have a permanent record of what you have created even if it sells? Have you been loading the pictures you take of your own art on to the computer so that you can email them to out of state clients? Have you kept a record of what files you have or don't?

Then why haven't you gone through those records to see if there is something you've already done that could qualify for the Regional? You don't always have to create something absolutely new for a show. Okay, something like the motorcycle show calls for a new image for most of us, not being riders or Bobs or even paying much attention to bikes. But most shows, especially shows with no fixed theme, like the Regional, that's your chance!

Sure you're a painter and would never touch a photograph for love nor money. What's that, you would for money? Then what about all of the work you've done. Is there something that a program like PhotoScape or GIMP or even the high-priced spread PhotoShop could make new and shiny? If there is then why haven't you done it? There is no shame in taking your own work and making it a new image for a show. It's all part of the game in the digital age.

Deadlines never come at the RIGHT time. That's why they are deadlines. They're like jury summons, no one wants to see one, everyone wants to get out of one and it is never the right time for one, but try to sell that to the judge if you don't show up. You just have to put on your game face and do it.

Did you watch the U.S. Women against Brazil? They were one man down, one goal down and out of time...but they found a way to win. That's what winners do, they find a way when there's no time left and no one believes it can be done. That's how you face a deadline, you make it happen.