The Home Front - The Making A Mark Awards 2012

The penultimate category of the 7th Annual Making A Mark Awards  concerns matters relating to the practical aspects of our artistic art and/or how to make life at home with the artist that bit better.

There are three awards:

• The Most Gorgeous Mouthwatering (MGM) Studio of the Year
• The Art Innovation of the Year Award
• “The Moose” - the award for the best animal in an illustrated blog

The Most Gorgeous Mouthwatering (MGM) Studio of the Year

The Most Gorgeous Mouthwatering (MGM) Studio of the Year is for the Most Improved Studio of the Year and reflects the continuous efforts of many artists to improve our studio and working environments

Previous winners are

• 2008:  Tracy Helgeson (Works by Tracy Helgeson)  [This award was originally made under The “Tales from the Frontline” Amusing Musings Trophy - now retired.  It prompted the creation of this new award in 2009]
• 2009:  Lisa Call (Lisa Call - Contemporary Taxtile Art) 
• 2010:  Cathy Johnson (Shed of Reality: a place called sanity)
• 2011:  shared between:
• Carol Marine - and David (Building My Studio)
• Loriann Signori - and Daddio (Loriann Signori)

My poll this year about What's the best place to sell art? established that just four places were effective for selling art.  "Direct from the studio" was listed by nearly a quarter of artists as their best place and overall it ranked #1 for both revenue and profit.  Small wonder then that people should want to improve their studios since they have potential for sales as well as creating!

That said for the most part people were focused on improving their working space this year and a number of people took action to improve their studio arrangements:

• Sherrie York (Brush and Baren) had a Studio Redux and learned more about how to create the right studio space
• Linda Blondheim (Linda Blondheim Art Notes) is making progress in clearing out her studio and making it more like the way she thinks it will work best for her and her students
• Rose Welty had a bit of a Before and After moment in her office/studio - Studio: Before and After pictures!

However, the biggest studio makeover of the year that i know of was undertaken by Jana Bouc (JanasJournal.com) who moved her entire studio into her garage! See My New Remodeled Art Studio Tour (at last!).  The before and after photos are quite something - and she deserves an award for discovering a new floor suitable for studios!  Jana also clearly demonstrates how it is possible to recycle a lot of domestic goods and equipment acquired cheaply into really useful studio equipment.

I'm not sure it's MGM grand, but I love it and it's my favorite place in the world to be. I have everything I need with a place for everything, flexibility to do any kind of work, room for teaching, great lighting, comfort whether it's hot or cold out, and the ability to work any hours I want with a great sound system playing music or audio books.

Below you can find a video of Jan giving you a tour of the studio.

The 2012 Winner of
The Most Gorgeous Mouthwatering (MGM) Studio of the Year
is
Jana Bouc



The Art Innovation of the Year Award

The Art Innovation of the Year Award is awarded to highlight those artist bloggers who experiment and/or create and/or share innovations which help the practice of other artists. The sharing may be through: the invention of a new tool or art medium to aid artists testing and reviewing a new art medium or material experiments with existing or new art media, materials or equipment and the creation of a new way of doing things

This was a new award last year.  It came about because I've found it quite remarkable how many accomplished and practising artists -who are also art bloggers - have gone that extra mile and addressed their own personal and practical needs by creating a new tool or experimenting with new media, which they then share with other artists!

The Joint Inaugural Winners in 2011 were:

• Ester Roi (Ester Roi)- for her Icarus Art Drawing Board 
• Karin Jurick (A Painting Today) and Brett (the easel guy) - for her Paint On Tabletop Easel

I've had the winner of this year's award in mind ever since I wrote a blog post about it - see Nicole Caulfield and her Mobile Art Studio / Gallery.

In the summer of 2012, Nicole Caulfield (Nicole Caulfield Fine Art) reinvented a small camper as a mobile art studio and gallery.  The idea was truly inspired - right down to the vintage/retro design!  My blog post gives the story of the mobile studio/gallery so I won't add any more here except to say Nicole did it all by herself.  So take heart all those who want a space to call their own - and somewhere to keep dry at art fairs when it rains!

The 2012 Winner of

Art Innovation of the Year Award

is

Nicole Caulfield and the Sublime Mobile Art Gallery

The Exterior of the Sublime Mobile Art Gallery
The exterior has a red and white striped awning attached when 'on duty'
The door doubles as a place to hang Nicole's series of food art.
Plus art hangs from a hanging rail attached to the top of the side of the caravan

The very original "Moose"

“The Moose” - the award for the best animal in an illustrated blog

"The Moose" Award for the best animal in an illustrated blog is named after the first winner of this award.  The animal can be wild or domestic, a perennial subject or the studio pet.

This award is for particularly noteworthy artwork about an animals or animals (wild or domestic) posted to an art or illustrated blog in 2012. The original intention was that it would be about the studio pet (hence why it's in this category) - however over the years it's grown beyond this to being a blog about artists involved with animals - and fish and birds!

Previous winners are
2006:  Maggie Stiefvater (Greywaren Art ) - Moose
2007:  Gayle Mason (Fur in the Paint) - “Out of Sight”
2008:  Tracy Hall (Watercolour Artist)
2009:  Kimberly Santini (The Painting a Dog a Day Project)
2010:  Jeanette Jobson's (Illustrated Life)
2011:  Debbie Kotter Caspari (Drawing the Motmot)

I have to say I've grown very fond of Paula Pertile's (Drawing a Fine Line) mad, bad and very splendid cats (see Thanksgiving) who I am sure would be very much appreciated by anybody who likes cats.

The funny thing is that, according to Paula, she doesn't draw cats at all.  Felines are certainly not listed on her "what I draw' statement.  ("I'm an artist who draws children's picture books, architecture, still and "un-still" lifes, food, portraits and yarn.") 

However I keep seeing her cats on her blog - they pop up simply everywhere! I keep expecting them to get a Facebook page. Here are some of the drawings which I think wouldn't have happened if they hadn't been around.  For 2013, I think Paula ought to seriously consider giving her cats a free rein - after all there are an awful lot of feline art lovers out there!

Mad cats - © Paula Pertile

Bedtime story - © Paula Pertile

Mexican fish and chips - © Paula Pertile

It gives me very great pleasure to declare........

The winners of

"The Moose" Award 2012

for the best animal on an illustrated blog are

Paula's cats - drawn by Paula Pertile

Tomorrow I'll be announcing the winner of the Best Picture Awards.