last week a show at the utah county art museum started, a show for all of the students of the studio that i painted with from january to may. i entered three pieces for the fun of it: flair, dakota girl, and embraced by tradition. on the first friday of every month provo has a gallery stroll, where all of the downtown galleries stay open late and people walk for gallery to gallery. the utah county art museum typically has an artist's meet and greet for all of it's participants and families. so it was with the intent of meeting and greeting with other painters that we set out for the evening.

after an hour and fifteen minutes on the freeway i was beyond frustrated. a trip that normally takes 40 minutes had stretched and grown and now we were late and my nerves were fried. i sat down with some refreshments and let my kids play in a spinning door, much to the chagrin of every old lady in the place, buy hey, they were all in one place having a great time. after recharging i went to leave, maybe hitting a few other galleries, when the studio owner approached me and let me know i had won first place.

first!

at this point all of the little things that had been bothering me just melted away. i had never won anything before! but my little gal had taken first place. all of that fretting, all of the hours, had been counted. the competition was judged by two unbiased BYU professors; felt nice to have people who don't even know ME appreciate my work.

i feel overwhelmed with gratitude: my teacher who spent hour upon hour helping me to bring her to life, my husband who has sacrificed much of his creative time so that i could spread my wings and fly, my mom who watched my kids every tuesday so that i could paint, and the sweet hearts in my life who have supported me when i didn't feel like i could take the pressure of completing it.

we went back down the long hall to take a picture all together. i approached this little old hippie man and asked him to take our picture with my painting. he seemed all too eager and loved my painting as well. after studying it for a few moments he asked, "so were you, like, a chinese girl in a previous life?" hrmmmm, not that i can recall...

the show will run through the rest of august, so if you get a chance, go visit her. and while i was originally a little upset about the placement of my paintings, it now seems apropo that they're at the end of a long hallway, close to a new doorway.