I found out yesterday that I received a 2008 Mid-Career Artist Fellowship from the Kansas Arts Commission. It's actually not official yet because the KAC board needs to approve the list. However, I find it hard to believe that a majority of the board members would look at the list and say, "Jill Rumoshosky Werner? Oh no, we don't want her to get an award. She's a real creep and we can't stand her artwork. Give that award to someone else." Most of them have no idea who I am, so if they rejected me, it would probably be based on the difficulty factor of my name alone. They might feel it's too long to fit on the 3-foot tall, diamond-encrusted trophy that I'm sure I am going to receive.
Since I attended the selection panel meeting and saw the work of all the other visual arts candidates, I know how tough the competition was this year. They had restructured the fellowship rules and many previous winners were allowed to apply again, so there were a lot of candidates and most of them did very good work. I feel privileged to have been one of the eight artists chosen and I intend to be insufferably smug for the next few days. If it gets any longer than that, stage an intervention and slap me in rehab.
I secretly added some new artwork to my website after getting it photographed by my excellent photographer, Gordon Bernstein. He makes my work look really, really good. You've seen most of these projects on my blog and followed their progress, so this may not be a surprise to you, but look what he did with Dispensed. Click on the picture to see a larger version or you can see the detail pictures here.
Another work I had photographed was Laced. I wrote a lot about it in previous posts so I won't talk about this one either, but here are the detail shots.
A smaller piece that I finished recently can be found here. I decided to call it Isolated. I know it's a semi-creepy name, but it seemed appropriate. I guess I've spent too much time in my basement and it's beginning to get to me.
Pictures of Portable Picnic, the collaborative project currently in an Oklahoma City gallery, are here. If my part of this project doesn't sell, I'll bring it home, make my own tableware for it and enter it into shows.
Last but not least is Awarded. I made most of this two years ago, but it never felt finished. I didn't want to enter it into shows, but I did post pictures of it on my website and publish them in the first version of my brochure. I finally realized what needed to be added and had it rephotographed. I added the "War Master" part and the work finally says what I wanted it to say artistically. I have created several human rights related artworks in the past, but never one as political as this one. However, there is another secret meaning here which I prefer to keep to myself for now. If you know the answer, then you know I consider you a good friend. If you don't know the secret meaning, pump me full of cheap chocolates someday and I might tell you.
