I just love being an artist, you never know from one day to another what may come your way.  This week I just found out that I had won first prize in 2 categories at the American Art Awards in LA.  The first award was for Naive Art where I entered “The true colors of Hindley Street” which has also been made into duvets for ARTnBED.  If you want to see the announcement on the HIGHLIGHT HOLLYWOOD website here is the link with the lovely article written by Tommy Lightfoot Garrett.  The second award was my painting “Noahs Ark” and that won first prize in the Religious section which was just announced today and can be seen on this link; AMERICAN ART AWARDS and both are available to purchase as limited edition GICLEE PRINTS on my website.

This image above is the one third of the actual painting, if you want to see the whole thing here is a link HINDLEY STREET COMPLETE

AMERICAN ART AWARDS

The American Art Awards is open to artists around the world and its President Thom Bierdz is a champion for all artists in all genres and takes great delight in introducing new artists to the American market.  The award is judged by 25 of the top art galleries in USA and here is the full list of the Top Galleries.

ALL ART GENERA

Thom is of course a very talented artist himself, self taught who enjoys all types of art whether its medium is oil, acrylic, photography, sculpture, pastel or any other form and the awards is open to all genres too; landscape, portrait, pop art, expressionism, realistic, outsider art, naive art, impressionism, erotic or whatever.  Thom himself cannot enter of course nor is he part of the judging panel, he leaves that up to the art galleries.  He did however send me a lovely message on Facebook and invited me to enter as he does with other artists whose work he comes across that he likes.  Although an invitation to enter is not necessary as it is open to all artists across the world.

ARTIST AND ACTOR

Thom Bierdz has had a very interesting career as both an artist and actor firstly starring in the Young and the Restless as Phillip Chancellor lll and also on Melrose Place.  Thom got a lot of publicity for coming out as the first gay actor in daytime television, although there seems to be a bit of controversy over that lately with Thom declaring that he is not gay after all but did that mainly as a publicity stunt, so at this stage this is still up in the air.  No doubt he is therefore breaking hearts on both sides of the ledger!  Thom has also added author to his achievements penning the candid memoir “Forgiving Troy” which he won both the Indie Excellence Book Award for Best Autobiography and the USA Book News National Best Book Awards in the Non-Fiction and True Crime categories.  He was also nominated for the Lambda Literary Award in 2008.

THE ART OF AN AUTHOR

“Forgiving Troy” subject matter sounds as it come straight out of the day-time soap operas Thom starred in but unfortunately this is the real story of his own journey to forgive and love his paranoid schizophrenic brother who killed their mother in 1989.  Troy is serving a life sentence in a Wisconsin prison.  As if this was not tragic enough Thom’s other brother then committed suicide leaving his older sister Kim as his only remaining sibling.

However Thom Bierdz continues to shine, winning acclaim and awards for his continued contributions to charity work for human rights, through his art, acting and writing.

So keeping Thoms struggle in mind here is a quote by Vivian Komori which I think fits all of us perfectly;

“Life is not about how fast you run or how high you climb but how well you bounce”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting to you all.

Love Marie xxx

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALEand SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.

I have just returned home after delivering my new entry an artwork into this year’s “On, Under and By the Sea” Postcards Exhibition at the Bay, Glenelg, which will be held during the Adelaide Fringe in the 175^th anniversary year since European settlement in South Australia.  The title to this art blog should have been “A day from Hell” but I will get to that in a minute.

The above painting “From Kingston Park to Glenelg” was my entry in the last Postcard exhibition for 2009.  A lady by the name of Victoria Rolinski won first prize and I plus 4 other artists won equal second prize and therefore had our artwork made into Postcards which from all accounts has been selling well at the Bay.

At the time when I was asked to submit an artwork for this competition we still lived at the farm but had already bought the new house by the sea so my mind was full of sea inspired images, so it didn’t take me long to figure out what I wanted to paint.

ARTISTIC INSPIRATION

The inspiration for the above painting was really the balcony view from my cousin Dan and his partner Johnny’s house at Marino, although I do plead a bit of artistic license of course.  You may want to read more about them, and their view and here is the link to the art blog 35. “THE FIRST ADAM & STEVE”.

That all said and done, let me tell you about the “Day from Hell” when I delivered the new artwork;   Firstly I was running late surprise, surprise, and while I raced off to the neighbors house my husband was warming up the car (or so I thought) I raced back and found the car had a flat battery and hubby is kindly transferring all my stuff to his car, setting up the GPS etc.  So off I go, buy myself a can of vanish and proceed to spray the artwork in the car park, talk about last minute, lol.

THE ART OF NOT LOOSING YOUR COOL

Hop back into the car which now seemed also a bit reluctant to start, but kicks into gear and set off for my delivery.  Park again and find that my high heels have completely broken in two, so limp my way to drop of the painting and then find a shoe shop.  All good to go again and back to the car which now won’t start (this is hubbys car don’t forget, mine is still home also not starting) Couldn’t believe it, called the RAA (Car rescue firm) and sat and waited 45 minutes in the hot sun for the knight in shining armor who got the naughty car going again (something about an alternator and a half charging battery, boys talk you know, lol)

MORE PAINTING IDEAS

Most of the rest of the day was spent very pleasantly with darling daughter Hillivi, lunching, chatting, shopping and errands.  Apart from what I thought was going to be incident number 4!  Dropped Hillivi at the dentist and got into the lift on the 5^th floor, pressed the button, door shut and nothing happened, me and the male occupant looked at each other and pressed the button again when the lift did a quick jolt and then slowly kicked into gear again.  The man said “God I thought we were stuck or about to plummet to our deaths” and when I told him about my day so far, he said it was nice to meet me but if he knew earlier about my day he would not have got in the same lift, lol.

So on reflection of my day I think this quote by Anne Dudley Bradstreet (Poet) fits well here:

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome”

Till next time happy painting and sculpting to you all,

Love Marie xx

Ps Keep your fingers crossed for me!

(c)

Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALEand SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES.  Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.