NOTE: This is transcribed from my original iphone note - date 2/12/10
Competition day was as exhausting and exhilarating as anything I've experienced! We joined the line of artists in the early AM, waiting for them to cover the banquet room being used as painting space in plastic. With everyone in a holding pattern, we spent time meeting and chatting with fellow artists, many of whom we'd seen or heard about online. One girl complimented my hair and before I could respond, she uttered an amazed, "Scott? Scott?!! Scott Fray!" when she looked to the figure just behind me. I squinted and Scott and I said at once, "Rachel? Inter-spacial Rachel?!! Oh MY GOD!" Excited squeals and hugs followed. The day after Scott and I met at a festival in upstate NY, 6 years ago, I had watched him bodypaint Rachel as a Star-Bellied Sneech (of Dr. Suess lore). Now Rachel is a bodypainter too, arriving in Las Vegas by way of her home in Hawaii. Small world!
Once allowed in, Kristen sprints off to claim our table. We will have 6 hours to execute our design. They decided to divide our category, due to limited space in the room. The first third (us) would start right away, the next third could begin an hour later and the final third would actually paint on Saturday. Apparently the airbrush category didn't max out after all, so there will be extra room in the work area tomorrow. What that means to us is that we won't know if we made the finals until Saturday night.
Six hours of flying color later, we're put in line for judging. Kristen is a vision and it's definitely a good piece of work! The whole feeling is friendly and appreciative among the artists/models. The only instance where I felt someone teetering off the unsportsmanlike deep-end was one artist who pointed at us at the outset of the competition and shouted, "Hey, there's two people painting over there - that's not allowed!"
I barely glanced in her direction and kept right on painting. Scott & I had both pored over the rules as well as writing back-and-forth with the organizers over every question. As newbie's, we weren't about to be disqualified over some preventable misunderstanding.
In fact, most of the people around her were painting in tandem, it was just us that she happened to notice. An official had to go over and tell her that the rules had been up on the website and that if she had read them she would have known what was and was not acceptable for artists with assistants. At the end when all the photographers were circled around our painting I overheard her huff, "Well of COURSE that's nice, there were TWO artists painting it!" I settled for inwardly rolling my eyes, which I could barely focus by then anyway.
Since I'm not officially the artist, I don't get to go inside the judging room with Scott and Kristen. I'm vexed, considering all the work I've done today but they didn't ask me when they made the rules. I will say that experiencing the electricity in the work room today was a singular and unique thrill for me. All of us painting our hearts out toward this shared goal, all of us called to this art form in one place at one time!
Scott and I have days that are better and worse when we work together and today we seemed of one accord, which is a wonderful feeling. Seeing everyone's work is thrilling too, the choices every artist makes in bringing their vision to life. I don't know how you can judge this or what merits will inevitably rank one painting above another. All I know for certain right now is that we'll have to wait and see...
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