AWS TRAVELING SHOW - MIDDLETOWN ART CENTER

Sweetie played chauffeur to me and Linda yesterday and we went up to Middletown, OH to see the AWS Traveling Show.



This is the brochure, showing the Gold Medal of Honor winner, Frederick Wong.
This painting is not in the traveling show.



After Sweetie, Linda and I walked around twice and then stood in the middle of the room and looked all around, Linda asked me, "Which one is your favorite?"  This is it:

By Catherine Anderson, it won a High Winds Medal and $1,750.00 but darned if I could tell which ones were gold, silver or bronze because they weren't listed that way.  And the brochure (more about that later) didn't enlighten me about anything but the Gold Medal winner.




What can I say about the show?  A plethora of greys, darks, and city scapes were to be seen on every wall.

If you happen to revel in greys, darks, and cityscapes, this was the show for you.  

I saw a theme with the compositions of all the dark paintings - dark dark darks all around with a patch of light off center.  Most full sheet or squared at 35 x 35 inches.


Now, there were some colorful and watercolor-y paintings in the show, but they were few compared to the others.

This portrait, by Donna K. Read, was lovely to look at.  The flow of the watercolors and softness on the blouse were well done, as was the use of hard and soft edges - and color :)

This painting, by Elaine Bowers, made you feel like you were flying over the delta.  Fresh, lovely color.

And this one, by Cathy Hegman, caught my fancy because of the birds (not crows but blue birds on a string).  It made me want to find out the story behind this one.  








About the brochure.  Don't pay $20 for one unless you find out about it first.  It's got doubled pages, missing pages, and some of the paintings are not in there (because of the missing pages).  Not good.  A national American watercolor show and the brochure apparently didn't have anyone proof it before sending it to the printers - or else the printers were high on printing ink the day they ran it and just did whatever they felt like doing.  It did show many of the paintings that didn't get in the traveling show - many I would have loved to have seen. 


Note bene:  I sent an email to the AWS describing the problems with the brochure.  Very apologetic and concerned about that.  Apparently, they have used the same printer for a long time and this is the first time there have been bad batches (some in North Carolina and now some in Ohio).  They are going to send me a good copy of the brochure.  Now that's good business!  Everyone is allowed to make mistakes - but it's how you deal with those mistakes that gives your customers/clients a good feeling about the organization or not.  Well done, AWS!