...and the winner is...

This is the prize winning baby. Not what I had expected but it's quite a weird exhibition with a preference for collage. My favourite piece was ballpoint pen on the back of failed lottery tickets. Maybe 75 wee sketches all framed up as one. Could have looked at it for hours. There were a couple of other stitchy pieces too. Some nice big landscapes with odd bits of weaving embedded in the paint. I'm always a bit afraid of colour so the next target I'm setting myself is to BE BOLD.

I have a large collection of under the bed life drawing. I don't mean drawings of unseemly activity that takes places under the bed (too dusty for that). I mean pieces currently in storage that I intend to stitch into and create a bodily landscape...perhaps. A brightly coloured bodyscape. You read it here first!

Because this is the 10th anniversary of this particular exhibition they hung the rejects as well in the shed next door. A kind of smelly, badly lit salon de refuse but it has a kind of kudos all its own. A feeling of here I am, warts and all. When they were presenting me with my cheque they forgot my name allegedly (what it is to be famous) and forced me to yoohoo from the crowd. As I walked to collect my prize they asked me how it felt to be (half) rejected, just in case I was beginning to believe my own publicity.

What to do with the money? I feel I should buy art of course but most of the pieces I liked were rather out of my price range. I always go back in about 10 days time when the agricultural show in the field next door persuades a reluctant dearly beloved to accompany me. Perhaps I'll let him choose....which means we'll come home with a tractor engine.