Honorable Mention!

Tonight was the Thoroughbred Foundation Artist Reception and Awards Ceremony at Emerald Downs. It was my first adjudicated art show.

I can’t believe it, but I received Honorable Mention (4th place) for all oil paintings.  There was a certificate, a ribbon, a cash prize, and food. Woohoo! 

Special thanks to my family and brother-in-law Matthew for coming to the reception. Thank you to Pam and Minta for helping me with the process! Thanks to Chrissie for telling me about the event! Thank you to Robyn for letting me paint her horse.

“Dark Eye Log” is a name I got when listening to the book of Matthew as I painted. I apparently like to obsess over very complicated things like art and long audiobooks. It’s about seeing the speck in other people’s eye, when not seeing the log in your own eye. I identified with this since I have a log-like part of my left iris going into my pupil.

The weeeeeener! 

I love my daughter🤩. Next year, she will submit art and dominate the competition.

I may have been happy. This one might sell this weekend -who knows🤓. It was fun to watch people crowd around it. 

If you’re headed to the races, check out the amazing art show there. People come from all over the world to see it and submit artwork. There’s a huge variety of high quality and it’s priced to sell.

Puget Sound Horse Racing

PUGET SOUND HORSE RACING

Artistry for the brave

July 9th, 2018

Puget Sound Horse Racing expresses the bravery of the jockey with PNW imagery. It is an ephemeral triptych oil painting.

In this painting, the jockey’s face shows focus, skill and bravery. Unlike other equestrian sports, horse racing requires jockeys to balance out of the way of the horses, perched on their toes at 40mph.

Horse racing can be dangerous –similar to bodies of water. The artist, Hilma Josal, expresses this with an ominous Sea God Poseidon painted below and Mount Rainier, our local volcano, painted above.

One may notice that the jockey above looks like the only person on rippling zebra-like water, but as the viewer’s eyes wander down the canvas below the water-line, there turns out to be many horse legs moving in beams of sea-light revealing a tight race.

The composition of the oil painting has been planned to insinuate a connectedness between the scene above and below the Puget Sound. For example, the posture and coloring of the horse and sea horses compliment each other. The reason there are three sea horses in this painting is to balance the three sets of racing horses to the left as well as the rectangular length of the Thoroughbred above. Poseidon’s leg and the horse’s front leg are in a matching pose. Poseidon’s spear has been lengthened and the jockey’s crop is breaking correct form to match the triton. Another interesting note is that the legs of the Thoroughbred are visible through Poseidon’s ghost-like appearance.

As a tribute to Salish culture and the ancestors of the Puget Sound, below the water is a petroglyph the artist, Hilma, grew up beside in Victor, WA.

Can you find a Sea Biscuit as a nod to the great racehorse?

Fun fact: Hilma used a leaf blower to push the paint around and create the underwater-effect.