I was honored to be ConGlomeration’s guest artist in 2011. In the year before, I met the Art Show’s organizer, Kyle Thomas, at another show and he invited me to come to Louisville, KY over Easter to put up my work and hobnob with the other artists, staff, and show attendees and fans of the genre. This fantasy art show had it all: it featured paintings, drawings, fiber arts, sculptures (plenty of dragons), and so much more from many artists; a fashion show competition featured knock-out costumes sewn by some extremely talented sewists; gamers of all types of games populated the ballroom the entire week~ a few taught me how to play the card game, Crimes Against Humanity, and I laughed so hard my face hurt for days.
It was a great time and I made some lifelong friends (a shout-out to Melissa, Cris, Kyle, and John— and others. I loves you all to pieces). The ConGlomeration folks are wonderful and I’m so happy I got to meet you.
Each year, the attendees got to vote on their favorite artworks in the show and the winning artist would be given an award plaque with a 3-d sculpture. (That year my painting, Joy Ride won and I received a stunningly gorgeous award sculpture made by Scott Webb.)
In the years that followed, I was honored to make a few of the awards myself. I opted for Sculpey in the beginning….
Sculpey clay— “The Nugget”— about 7 or 8” tall. I had the brilliant idea to use a whiffleball as my armature. But, when Sculpey is fired in an oven to mature at 275 deg F, one needs to remember that plastic tends to melt at that temp…. Oh, nobody knows the troubles I’ve seen….
Another of the Sculpey clay awards— “The Angel”.. I got smart and used an aluminum armature this time.
Later, when I had my clay studio up and running, I switched to sculpting terra cotta tiles. A gargoyle wall tile, about 9”. I liked the idea of a hanging an art award. It’s out of the way on a wall and not taking up valuable table surface space.
The last award I made for 2019. Another terra-cotta redware wall sculpture about 12”h. The theme of octopi and women must’ve been the rage in fantasy that year.
Making the awards from fired clay meant that I couldn’t procrastinate. Clay needs time to dry and to be fired, so I’d get them finished around February and ship them with plenty time for the show start.
The excitement I had for making these can’t be overstated: I really looked forward to the task. I had carte blanche and could make nearly anything I wanted. There may’ve been some kind of loose theme, but I don’t really remember if there was or not. What was thrilling was imagining how the recipient would react when getting some kind of artwork from me.
I’d love to do this kind of project again! Any takers?