Taking Chances

This little gem arrived in my inbox Tuesday:

       Good Afternoon,

Thank you for your interest and submission of your artwork for this year’s Winter Park Art Festival poster. After careful consideration, we regret we are unable to utilize your painting for our event. While we recognize the exquisiteness of your paintings, we appreciate the time you have invested in the application process. We hope that you submit another drawing next year and continue to support our Art Festival.

It was signed by an intern who apparently needs more supervision. Filled with not only errors about my submission, the event is even mis-named! Every year emails are sent out asking for submissions, and every year I send in something. In this case, the event is actually the Winter Park Autumn Art Festival, not to be confused with the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival, held in the spring. Because it is free to do so, I usually enter something, never expecting to be selected, however, there is always that slim off chance, so really why not? A fall, or Winter Park theme is what they asked for, so this year I sent in a photo of fall leaves which sounds pretty mundane, but is in all actually one of my best photographs. 

I decided to go with something very simple, unlike in the past when I was taking chances with my photographs. Looking through my library for an Angela request,  I realized just how many things I've tried turning into photographic art. My word--take a look at a few of them, taken over the years:

What do you think of the above? I remember getting clay, mashing it all together in what I thought was a pleasing color combination, then mashing the top with either waxed paper, or aluminum foil. 

And who could forget my milk, food coloring, and dishwashing soap experiments?

Here's a funny old one made with letters I bought at Big Lots, using finger painting as the background.

Anything around our home was fair game in those days, including a line up of little glass balls.

Who wouldn't want a photograph of Jelly Bellies?

The light is nice on them though.

I would buy small inexpensive props to use, such as these colorful vases from IKEA. Setting them up on my kitchen floor, using foam core below them, I positioned them under the skylight.

Here's a little gem found in a pack of stickers.

Care to guess what this is?

I can hardly remember how I made this, but as I recall, I cut up construction paper, layering the broken glass from our front door atop the paper, and heaven only knows how I used soap on there. I can make out the bubbles, but for the life of me, I don't remember the process. 

Here's colorful stirring sticks resting on aluminum foil.

I remember sitting on the bathroom floor, underneath the skylight, with tissue paper and a daisy, photographing it on the various colors, as quickly as possible with my little camera, eventually turning it into a collage.

More of our broken glass which I kept in a jar under the kitchen sink for years, thinking of experiments...

One day, while shopping at Ross, I came across a little jar of fish candies on sale--I could not wait to get them home to make some art! 

Actually that experiment has paid off, most of the others have never been seen by anyone but me until now. The above I called, "One of a Kind."

I tried selling this one of a mirror underneath Angela's tree, and I did have loads of folks remark on it, however, eventually I pulled it to make room in my baskets for other silly things!

Most people can hardly believe I take photographs every single day, but I view it as practice. I'm still such a beginner in this trade! 

Connect Four anyone?

I could go on and on, oh wait--I've already done just that!  Anyway, puzzling about why it is that I am accepted into art shows only occasionally, I think my conclusion is thus: I'm a square peg in the round hole of photography. I don't photograph the same thing all the time, I don't use Photoshop, nor do I have "big boy" equipment for the simple reason that I'd have no idea how to operate it! 

Really, I'm just a 60 year old woman having fun with a camera, and if the buying public like what I do, and fortunately it seems as if they do, all the better. Putting this blog post together has been a fun reminder of my journey. Now, to find something weird to photograph today!!! Wish me luck!