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I regret that I physically can no longer participate in weekend outdoor shows that require packing a double-booth, travel, setup, lodging, full-time attendance, and tear down. But, a couple months ago, a friend suggested I apply to exhibit in the Laguna Beach Festival of Art, FOA, held every summer from early July until September. Participation had historically been restricted to residents in “near Laguna Beach zip codes,” but in recent years was expanded to all of Orange County.
The FOA is just 20 miles from home, and requires each artist only to setup, be present, and maintain of a single 8-to-10-foot display of their art. The FOA shares the same grounds as the Laguna Beach Pageant of the Masters, POM, an event known world-wide for its tableaux vivants or "living pictures" where actors in costume are positioned in framed scenes to nearly replicate classical and contemporary works. The venue seats 2,629 people facing a large stage with a commentator and full orchestra playing background music for each re-enactment. The combination Laguna Beach FOA/POM, celebrating its 94th anniversary, draws a daily crowd of nearly 4,000 making it one of the oldest and most prestigious shows in the nation.
Acceptance to the FOA is highly competitive in down-selecting 100 artists from a variety of styles and mediums including: paintings, sculpture, jewelry, photography, ceramics, glass, etc. And the juror process is tight. I know. I was once a juror for the show about 15 years ago.
As I remember, jurors also make 2 or 3 rounds scoring every artist as the show progresses. At the end of that year’s show, about 60 artists with the highest scores are invited back to next year’s show. The remaining 40 artists are invited to compete again with next year’s new applicants.
This year about 350 artists including myself submitted 5 digital images for the first round of jurying. From that 350, about 50 were asked to join the final physical jury process along with the 40 juried-out artists from the previous year. The physical jury requires each artist to bring in three pieces of art. Of those combined 90 artists, 40 were selected as FOA participants this year. The other 50 received letters of condolence.
I was one of those 50, and receiving that letter hurt. But the hurt of losing has never stopped my appreciation of competition. Losing is a signal to improve. And I feel competition is the motivator leading to greatness in nearly everything. It is the backbone of America that drives us to personal, team, corporation, and national levels of achievement. And, on that national level, competition is the difference between capitalism and communism where, as Winston Churchill once said, “Capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
My family knows one of my favorite quotes is the short version of “The Man In the Arena” speech given by Theodore Roosevelt. The speech hangs in our home and is now in the home or office of several of our children.
The Man in The Arena
Theodore Roosevelt
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
There is a standing offer to my grandchildren. Anyone who stands and recites this speech from memory for the first time at any Hudson family gathering earns $25. If, under the same conditions, a grandchild recites the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling, they earn $50. If they recite both the speech and poem together, they receive $100.
If—
Rudyard Kipling 1865 – 1936
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
*******
The bottom line is: I was rejected from this year’s Laguna Beach Festival of Art. But I’m going to improve and be back next year. Hey, I’ve only been doing this watercolor thing for 30 years. I still have a lot to learn.
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