Arts in Bloom 2020

First Prize

Dimensions: 18 x 14 x 3.5
Medium: Paper
Year created: 2020
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: Rebirth! 2020, what a year we had. How many of us would like to erase 2020 and restart all over again? Just like a phoenix bird. The bird is a great inspiration to reach our goals, no matter how exhausted we are. What we need is A New Beginning to prove ourselves. My inspiration to use phoenix bird for this call was Harry Potter book series. When I read the books for the first time, I had researched about phoenix. The moment I came across Call for Art, Phoenix was the first thing that popped into my mind.

Second Prize

Dimensions: 20 x 20
Medium: Acrylic
Year created: 2019
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: My current work deals with challenging the societal perceptions and stereotypes of Black femininity and beauty by depicting women of color as Mother Goddess, grand, graceful, and beautiful. My work is about radical softness and an alternate view of black femininity.

Third Prize

Dimensions: 20 x 16 x 1
Medium: Photography
Year created: 2020
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: I've had a passion flower plant for many years, and I'm intrigued by the tendrils spiraling, searching for something to hold onto.

Honorable Mention

Dimensions: 24 x 24 x 1
Medium: Mixed media
Year created: 2020
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: I paint and create based on family, sense of home and textural arrangement . Nature is my second choice when painting especially flowers.

Honorable Mention

Dimensions: 29 x 21 x 1
Medium: Watercolor on paper
Year created: 2017
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: I thought about the vicissitudes of life and hope for the best.

Honorable Mention

Dimensions: 22.25 x 22
Medium: Watercolor
Year created: 2020
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: Inspired by the idea of isolation. All of us so different and so much the same, each in our own spaces.

Dimensions: 16.5 x 13.5 x 1.5
Medium: Photography
Year created: 2020
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: Besides creating mixed-media collage, I enjoy creating digital collage, using layer upon layers of images and daubs of color.

Dimensions: 6 x 24
Medium: Photograph
Year created: 2019
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: The inspiration for this piece is that we all can be reborn, we can all rise out of the dust to become something or someone new. We all have the capacity to become our best selves, all we have to do is believe.

Dimensions: 12 x 16 x 2
Medium: Watercolor on 100% rag acid-free paper, mounted on a wooden frame hand-made by the artist.
Year created: 2017
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: Fresh verdant growth in the garden

Dimensions: 20 x 20 x 2
Medium: Oil
Year created: 2020
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: The pigeon is so common that people either take them for granted, think they are nuisances or actually love them. I hope this painting would convert the former group into actually giving these birds a second look.

Dimensions: 40 x 30 x 1.5
Medium: Mixed Media
Year created: 2019
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: I've been curious about the time period when the Victory Theater was in its heyday, because of my love of theater, and because that was the era my grandmother lived in. With everything going on in the world right now, I feel as though history is repeating itself. In using theaters as a metaphor for the human condition, I explore the uncertainty that existed then and now.

Dimensions: 24 x 36 x 1.5
Medium: oil on canvas
Year created: 2019
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: This picture grew out of a beautiful sky. First I painted light breaking through gray clouds but I wasn't quite sure what this beauty would lead to. Hummingbirds, beautiful as they are, can be vicious little fighters. A friend recently showed me a picture of a dead hummingbird hanging on a branch while still clinging by its rigid claws. The only wound was a needle point in its head. Little wars happen all the time. Most are unseen battles, small wars of the heart and mind. Spring is the season of war bringing new life to the world of the hummingbird.

Dimensions: 18 x 25 x 1.5
Medium: monotype collage
Year created: 2019
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: Since I print my own papers I was drawn to the bird - like figure that appeared on one of my papers. Using toe bright colors it reminded me of that time of year when everything begins to blossom.

Dimensions: 12 x 18
Medium: photography paper
Year created: 2020
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: The beauty of the Ruby throated Hummingbird and the flowers. Hummingbirds are one of my favorite birds to photograph.

Dimensions: 19.25 x 24.75
Medium: iridescent watercolor
Year created: 2017
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: I love going to car shows and visiting car museums. I came across a collection of old car hood ornaments from all around the world and wanted to see them come alive once more.

Dimensions: 74 x 30 x 24
Medium: welded found steel
Year created: 2020
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: I worked on the Navajo reservation in the 1970s. They have deep dedication to the spirits of Ancestors and illustrate their gods as rainbows in their weaving and sand paintings. This group of colored scrap steel is an homage to Navajo spirituality and sense of continuity and a contribution to managing our difficult existential now.

Dimensions: 67 x 18 x 16
Medium: welded found steel
Year created: 2020
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: The scraps looked like a tall recently fertilized flower

Dimensions: 50 x 42 x 2
Medium: Oil
Year created: 2019
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: Inspired by the beauty surrounding us. Peonies always returning each year.

Dimensions: 18 x 24 x 1
Medium: Acrylic
Year created: 2020
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: Originally I had thought to paint another tulip when I came across this image in my photo file. I loved the color as well as the layers of unfolding petals. The star of the show, in my mind, is the little bud behind the glorious orange flower. It almost lurks in wait as the older blossom will eventually fade away. It is named for a woman who helped me with a recent computer purchase, not a remarkable event except for the fact that she was totally blind. It reminded me that even though my computer was going dark, my world was not. She was amazing nonetheless and an inspiration to me, and no doubt others.

Dimensions: 20 x 16
Medium: Acrylic Paint
Year created: 2020
What drew you to create this piece? What was your inspiration?: I recently developed a new way to paint using a cotton candy cone suspended from the ceiling filled with paint I then put it in motion. I am inspired as painting makes me feel good. Max Francis