Hello friends! I trust you have had a great holiday and New Year! I wanted to share that the book I mentioned in a previous post, Celebrating Art (Summer 2018 edition) finally arrived. This is the book that features one of Aspasia’s artworks alongside that of other K-12 students whose works were also accepted.

It took quite a bit longer than expected to arrive (especially in the current age of Amazon 2-day shipping, and almost ubiquitous alerts and communication of status and shipping updates that I’ve come to expect from most places). In fact, it took so long that I had started to wonder if the whole thing was a scam or some kind of illegitimate contest. I even remember searching online to see if it was a scam but nothing turned up, although I also could not find any information about the books, like pictures or evidence that prior versions existed, etc.(hence this post). When I placed the order, I read that I should expect the books (yes plural, since got some copies for family members too) to arrive in early December. But as late December was upon us, I started to wonder what happened, especially since I did not get any kind of update or information about a potential delay. I wondered if maybe it got delivered to the wrong address or something. So, I finally searched through my email and found the order confirmation and noticed I had not received any further communications from the company. I found their contact information on their website and they actually had a real person to live chat with, so I inquired about my order. It turned out that it was in fact delayed and I was told they should ship out on December 27. So I kept waiting. At some point in early January, I contacted them again as I thought I should have received it by then. They confirmed there was yet another delay but that all the books had been shipped and that it should arrive any day now. Fortunately, the package did arrive and all the books were there and in fact, my daughter’s art was published in it on page 177, so I can now say that yes, it is a legitimate contest!

I’d like to share a bit more about the book and the contest, since I know you too may have young artists in your midst who might like to have their art featured in this publication in the future too. The contest is for K-12 students in North America, and is held 3 times per year, resulting in 3 yearly publications. Parents or teachers can submit eligible artwork of the students; there is some potential benefit (art supplies, etc.) for teachers or schools who do so. I urge you to visit the contest website for specifics on that since the benefits and rules would naturally be subject to change. My understanding is that roughly the top 25% of student entries are accepted for publication. Of that, a top 10 are selected from each age category (age categories generally covered about 3 grade levels, so for instance Aspasia being a 10th grader, was in the grade 10-12 category). Top ten winners are presented at the front section of the book (first in list format, followed by the artwork in a shared layout) and they receive a copy of the book for free.

Remaining artworks are presented according to age category in the same shared layout (with 4-5 artworks per page). So for example, here is the spread where Aspasia’s work is featured. Her work is the boot with the baby bunny on it (bottom right).

The book is hard bound, the print quality is good, although I would have preferred either black or white backgrounds for the art pages over some of the bright colored backgrounds. Or at least for high school kids, a dark or black background would be preferred since at that age they are more serious about their art.

I have no idea the criteria under which the judging is conducted, especially without knowing what work was eliminated. We were a bit baffled by some of the choices for top ten and high merits considering some of the works that were not featured in that way. But that is always the case with art contests so I am not surprised by this. There were also some really nice works featured throughout and we are thrilled that Aspasia’s work made it in and that art students can be honored in this way.

One last thing I will add is that we understood that entries had to be completely original works of art, not based on any photograph that is not your own. We were very careful in honoring that. It just so happened that Aspasia recognized one of the other student’s pieces as being based on a photo she had seen online recently and the piece was given a high merit, so naturally she was disappointed by that and felt it was unfair to those whose work did not get accepted. It could be that the artist had obtained permission to create the piece or it could even be a photograph they took and posted online (giving the benefit of the doubt), we don’t know. I am sure those in charge do the best they can to enforce the requirements but it would be impossible to verify originality for all of the entries. Is it still worth trying to get published?…I would say yes.

So again, if you are interested in this contest for young artists in your life, check out the following website for all the details. It can be such a great confidence boost to get accepted in a contest and have your art published in a book.

www.celebratingart.com