Tell us about the last thing you got excited about.

Last year I entered the Incognito Art Show and my three submitted pieces eventually sold in the last week of the fundraiser, at the maximum discount to the original price. This year one of the three pieces I submitted sold for the full asking price. And just now a second piece has sold. Woohoo! It’s also a long way off before this art charity fundraiser ends, so the other submission, which is the one I think of as my best of the three, has an excellent  chance too. And yeah, this is the most recent thing I am excited about.

It’s not about the money, because I’m not getting any. But now I can correctly say my art has been valued and sold at the same price as the works of professional artists (who also donate their pieces to this cause).  Thus, my contribution to the art charities who are the subject of this effort is larger as my work has sold for more money than last year.

In a big open call out, of course the quality is variable. There are thousands of pieces and anyone and everyone can enter for free, as long as the submission criteria are followed. So there are clearly submissions from extremely raw and possibly young budding artists, and submissions of skill and sophistication from professionals, and a whole bunch of submissions from people in between, people who are hobbyists and enthusiasts and chancers like me. Placed somewhere beyond enthusiasm, with perhaps more than raw talent, and yet requiring opportunities like this to push them to further develop, artistically. Maybe. I don’t know.

What I do know is there’s joy in the process, which I felt as a little kid as much as I feel now. Only the adult me doesn’t cover entire pieces in one colour and call it done, like I did when I was five, like some kind of mini-Rothko kindergartener. No stick figures in front of boxes from me, not then and not now.