Drama over the student art show

I believe that today is the opening reception for this year's student art show. Early this evening, the school will be handing out awards for best student art and this year's art scholarship winners, and a few honorable mentions will get gift certificates to various restaurants and art supply places. And people will walk around and talk about which pieces that they like best while eating fruit and cheese and such.

But I won't be going this year. Mainly, this is because I've been so busy that I need a night to myself, so I'm not going to drive to school on a night that I can't even get into the lab. But I'll admit that a bit of sour grapes also figured into the decision not to go.

I won't be getting any awards or honorable mentions or anything like that. Yesterday, I was told for sure that I wouldn't even be in the show, unless maybe I would like to complain to the head of the art department myself. No, I don't think that I would like to do that.

Last week we were deciding which pieces we would want in the art show. I hadn't really given it much thought. There's always an art show going on, but I'm not always in it. I was in the first one this semester, since my teacher was in charge of that one and got to pick whatever he wanted to go in it. I think that he picked three of last semesters projects. Anyway, I knew that there was another show coming up, but I hadn't really paid much attention to it. Most of my stuff was still in the sculpture lab, and he could pick any of that for the show, or if he wanted something that I'd already taken home he could ask for it.

So I happened to ask about it, and he said that he didn't want things that had already been shown and asked what I liked best of what was left. And I asked which semesters I could choose from, since we'd already shown most of the good stuff from last semester, and most of this semester's stuff hadn't been glaze fired yet. He said that wasn't supposed to use stuff from last spring, but I could use some of that since that stuff wasn't fired in time to be in last year's show. Then he gave me a form to fill out.

The deadline was yesterday.

But all your stuff was already here, and you're just turning them in to me anyway. Just decide which two pieces you like best.

Now, until I saw this piece of paper, I'd forgotten that this show was the one with the awards and the gift certificates and such. Maybe if I had remembered I would have given it more thought and asked more questions and such, but I didn't. Anyway, I picked the paper castings of sea life and the glass dragon, since despite what he'd said I didn't want to break the rules and enter something from last spring, and he didn't want the stuff he'd shown before.

Okay, so I signed the paper and thought that was that.

Last year, we put all of the sculpture and ceramics in the sculpture lab and someone came by and looked at everything and decided who was in the show and who got awards and such. And my stuff was already in that room, so I didn't think that I had to do anything else. But I asked when people where coming to look at the pieces, and he said that this year the teachers were picking what went in the show, but someone else would come and look at the show and decide the awards after the show was up. Probably, that would be Monday.

Okay.

He said that my stuff was all ready, but he was hoped to get someone else's stuff fired before he started taking things over.

Okay, whatever.

Anyway, that isn't what happened.

If you were trying to get a scholarship, you were supposed to take your artwork over to the main building to be judged, and then after that you were supposed to take your artwork to be judged by someone else on Saturday. There were only three of us who had ceramics and sculpture who hadn't tried to get a scholarship, so apparently our stuff didn't even get looked at.

And, our teacher was told that the student art show has already been organized and that there is no room left for the five pieces he was going to put in. After a lot of arguing, they allowed him to put in one piece, not one of mine.

It is all nonsense that they do not have room for the other four pieces in the show. Our pieces would go in cases, which we have several of, and right now only two or three are being used. But I don't want to argue about it. Getting my pieces in the show at this point just isn't important to me. I can't win anything. It's too late for me to get a gift certificate to Trinity Ceramics or anything like that. And when you put something on display there is always the chance that it might get damaged or even stolen. So I don't see why I should risk that happening.

Last year I went and watched my fellow classmates win awards and such, but I don't think that I'll go this year. My classmates and I won't be getting anything, and only one of us will even be in the show. I know that it is partially my own fault, that if it had been important to me I should have found out what was going on last week, and when something didn't sound quite right I should have gone to the main building and asked more about it, but I didn't.

It's just one more annoying thing to deal with.