(With apologies to Emerson, Lake and Palmer)
Here at Top Comments we strive to recognize and promote the talent of this community by highlighting outstanding comments found throughout the day by the diarist, and more importantly through nominations sent to Top Comments at gmail dot com by your fellow Kossacks. When you send in your picks, please include your username and a word or two about why you nominated the comment, and send them in by 6:30 pm Pacific/9:30 pm Eastern to ensure they make the final diary.
For years now I've been posting the progress of my acrylic paintings on Saturday mornings, at the same time as claude's Saturday home repair series and Frankenoid's long-running Saturday gardening series. (9:00 eastern) It was actually Frankenoid's series that gave me the inspiration to start my own, Saturday Painting Palooza.
(Embarassing admission: I started the series more to distinguish myself from the hordes of other kossacks rather than out of a desire to serve the dkos community.)
Way back in 2005 I had no idea where I was going with the series. In fact, my early posts were about the process of painting. No actual painting took place. I used photos to aid in description of my earlier pieces. Not exactly the most stimulating of diary series. At some point I began actually painting new works specifically for the series and showed my progress each week. Some of these early pieces were truly awful. My skills were a bit limited, to say the least. But I kept with it.
Slowly, over a period of years, my confidence grew. And with the pressure to keep painting, my skills became better. More recently, I became interested in exploring an outlet to show my better pieces outside of the limited environment of dkos. One such place suggested to me was the Kent Art Association. After sitting on this information for a time (The technical term is procrastination.), I finally acted and became a member.
The Association has its own gallery. (seen below) Kent is one of those charming small New England towns. Some would call it artsy-fartsy. The Association's gallery is one of the highlights of the main street.
During the warmer months of the year, the Association runs shows continuously. For the show that ended today, members were able to enter up to two pieces. Fortunately, both of my entries were selected to be in the show. Seen below is one of my old dkos Saturday Painting Palooza paintings, Windward House. (Excuse the unfortunate cellphone photo.) It was hung in a nice spot in the gallery. It is seen below.
Today I left two other older Painting Palooza pieces for the new juried show. There are actually cash prizes for this one. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.
And on to the nominations.
From drewfromct:
beltane nails it.
From Otteray Scribe:
Rich in PA has an insightful observation regarding former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore in a diary by brasch, "Ten Commandments Judge" Running for President
From JanF:
In J Town this morning, a graphic shown by smileycreek was admired by MKSinSA which led to this exchange about the difference between parasites and hosts.
From fou:
This one is a gem.