Still Life Painting Competition: Day Four

While NYC was buzzing with the Pride parade on a beautiful day, Day 4 of our competition started with some slow Sunday morning trains and ended with a competition within a competition: bowling. Fears of fingers getting smashed or wrists sprained did not manifest themselves but we did have some winners and well, some gutter balls. First, second and third place are revealed at the end of this post.

But first, let's unveil the mystery objects. I asked Competition Judge, Tony Curanaj to talk a little about his choices to inspire and possibly challenge our 12 painters.

"I wanted a little bit of variety but I didn't go so off the wall because I did really want to give everyone the ability to do their best work. I didn't want anyone to feel like they were shoehorned in by an object. They are all relatively common items -- a mix of manmade and organic. I played a bit with color and shapes that I thought would be interesting. They also have the ability to be manipulated and customized.

The outside of the tomatillos can be peeled, the fruit itself can be cut.
The tissue paper can be crushed, crumbled or shaped to be a little more creative.
Things can be put inside of the jar and/or the bowl including honey from the Honey Bear."

(Note: The honey bear is an homage to our Executive Director, Justine Kalb, who has previously commented that she would like a wall of Honey Bears in her office.)

Each competitor had to use three out of the seven possible mystery objects. They were guaranteed two eggs, two tomatillos, two blocks and a pack of tissue paper but if they chose one of these items as one of their objects, they could choose to use just one of them. If they chose the Honey Bear as an object, they couldn't just use the honey inside. But if they were already using three other objects, then they could also use the honey instead of the bear. If you look at the photos (excuse the glare) some artists did put honey in their glass jar. And as reported earlier, one artist did go around asking fellow competitors if there were extra eggs after knocking over his/her own set-up and breaking some eggs. Luckily, some competitors were able to oblige.

All seven of the objects are being used in at least one painting but none of the objects made it into all of the paintings.

The 7 Mystery Objects: Heirloom blue eggs, small glass jar, tomatillos, kids' blocks, small ceramic bowl, tissue paper in a variety of colors and a honey bear.

And now onto Day 4: Works-in-Progress. We really encourage you to see the paintings in person, because the iPhone is not an accurate substitute but the photos can at least give a sense of process.
Final Lunchtime Viewing Tuesday, June 27th from 12-1pm (note new time!) and the Awards Ceremony Tuesday from 7-9pm.

Day 4: Mondavi

Day 4: The Milk Carton Kid

Day 4: Rupert Everton

Day 4: SNOC

Day 4: The Postman

Day 4: Bristles & Coffee

Day 4: Dedalus

Day 4: Mealy Potatoes

Day 4: King Chroma

Day 4: Winckel Man

Day 4: Nollie-Tre

Day 4: Sir Mix-a-Lot

Bonus Round: The 2017 Still Life Painter Bowling Competition

Liz Beard bowling the form.

Just around the corner from GCA, there's now Gutter Bar bowling alley. We took over lanes 5 & 6 and after some technical difficulties, lane 6 was computer scored while lane 5 had to go really old skool with pen and paper but competitor Julie Beck was on it.

Over in lanes 3 & 4 were some rowdy local brewers including our neighbor, Chris Cuzme, of Fifth Hammer Brewing. Chris and some friends have played jazz at several of our gallery openings. We're really looking forward to their own grand opening - hopefully before the end of the summer.

Over pitchers of beer, everyone showed off their own finely-tuned techniques, as Emma Hirst catapulted the ball down the lane with both hands, often with great success. But even with years of training, sometimes our painters felt like the pins were being uncooperative on purpose, because all but one would get knocked down. Justin Wood took some time warming up but then struck out ahead with back to back strikes. He swooped into second place with a score of 125 just beating out Brendan Johnston at 123 and Kevin Müller Cisneros at 122.

And the winner...with the speed of lightning and rumble of thunder...Ron Richmond, took home all the glory with a score of 132. Alas, winning The 2017 Still Life Painter Bowling Competition doesn't add any bonus points to the judges' scoring tomorrow...