The Contenders Are

Found Art, Rinconada, New Mexico

Butternut Squash, East Conway, New Hampshire

Tubular, Colebrook, New Hampshire

Hubbard Squash, East Conway, New Hampshire

Last week I said I’d disclose my four selections for submissions to ArtsThrive 2025, the prestigious juried exhibition that benefits the Albuquerque Museum Foundation, the fund raising and outreach arm of the Albuquerque Museum. The annual show is sweeping in its range of visual arts, every kind, and scope. There are 135 artists represented and more than 400 artworks. So, it’s a big deal and I would submit the finest annual juried exhibition in New Mexico, and it’s not close.

In short, I have been a proud participant for two years and have crossed fingers that I’ll make the cut again next year. It’s not a gimme. The competition is outstanding. I take nothing for granted, that’s for sure.

Choosing the portfolio from which to pick my four entries was a tough task. I think these images from the Found Art series work together beautifully though I'd be proud of four images from any of the portfolios, Under a Big Sky, At the Edge of What’s Left, Sketches of Winter and Found Art. Ultimately, I chose Found Art because I like the way the four photographs look. flow and feel together. At the top of the page are those images in the order in which I would hang them.

You’ve got to make the call at some point. And this is the way I’ve called it. Which is not to say that I’ve haven’t second and third guessed myself. Boy, four of those sky images would have been strong. Wouldn’t Presbyterian Church and other places that have been left behind be powerful?  Blah, blah.

Now I’ve done it. In the words of several thousand sages of art, “Don’t do it for anybody else. Do it for you.” May I paraphrase, “Screw ‘em if they can’t take a joke.”