Stars of Texas Juried Art Show

So the Stars of Texas Juried Art Show came to an end this weekend. I enter the show every year and this year won Honorable Mention for "The Diggers". If you are an artist or photographer and you didn't enter the show make plans to do so next year, the entry fee is low and the show just gets better every year. For anyone who didn't get by to see the show I am post my winning image and artist statement. Feel free to comment about what you think - I love to hear everyone's stories.



The inspiration for this piece comes from a very unlikely place - the public library in Woodward Oklahoma. When I was younger my mother used to take us to the library to pick out books to read. My favorite were a series of books about a little mouse. The best part about the little mouse books was that they contained no words - only pictures of the mouse involved in different situations and you got to tell your own story about the mouse.

20 years later I was stuck on a current project. In much of my art I try to get the viewer to interact with the piece, which is admittedly much easier with sculpture than with photography. That is where I was stuck - how to engage a viewer with a 2 dimensional artwork and my mind turned back to the little mouse books.

My memory of the little mouse books gave birth to a series of works that depict a climactic or decisive moment in a story - although what that story is is entirely up to the viewer. "The Diggers" is one of my favorite images in that series because it prompts so many questions - "Are they burying something or digging it up?" "Who are they?" "Why are they doing this?" "Who or what are they looking at?" "What happened leading up to this moment and what happens afterward?"

But the most important question is - what is your story?