The results are in! Here are a few words by our jury/judge/art critic Paul Gessell:
Dear Art-Lovers
The moment has come. The results of the contest are to be announced. But, you may ask: What exactly was the contest?
Discerning readers will have noticed our esteemed artist friend who organized this little contest first asked you all to send in some ditty about the photograph of The Naked Painter. Alas, it appears the cold froze more than the shrunken dangly bits of our painter friend. His mind was also addled by the cold and he suddenly asked you to provide a name for the mysterious woman in a painting.
So, some of you supplied a poem about The Naked Painter and some of you named the woman with no name. In fairness to all, we (the painter and I, the judge) have decided two winners shall be announced, one to receive a print of The Naked Painter and one to receive the painting of the woman with no name.
John, the artist, was so scrupulously fair in this contest that he picked a Mexican judge, that being me. Actually, I am not Mexican but a boy of the Outaouais, who is tramping around the jungle of the Yucatan in search of the perfect margarita. But I am as bias-free as they come, especially after a few margaritas and other substances found only in the deepest recesses of the jungle.
So, let the drum rolls begin and the winners approach the dais.
The winner of The Naked Painter contest is B. Ryan, who penned this evocative haiku:
cold frosty morning
frozen oil paint on palette
shivery tight buttocks
B. Ryan, whomever he or she might be, has managed to be painstakingly descriptive and poetically adventurous while injecting a soupcon of erotica with the “shivery tight buttocks” reference. B. Ryan, I salute you. (Please reassure me you were entering The Naked Painter contest and not the name-the-woman one.)
If John is to be trusted, a print of The Naked Painter is winging its way to you as you read this.
A note to contestant Melanie Scott: You might have scaled the ladder to No. 1 spot had you not made your little limerick so obscene. To those unfamiliar with the aforementioned ribald rhyme, Ms. Scott implied a word that rhymes with sock and it shrivels in the cold. And I thought the very proper Swiss would have cleansed impure thoughts from her mind these last few years.
Now, for the woman with no name:
Frankly, I found her to be the Mona Lisa of the Outaouais. But no one else came up with that idea. I considered giving myself first prize but that hardly seemed fair. So, instead, I have awarded first prize to Holly Friesen. Her entry: Moonlight Turned Inwards.
Friesen’s title fairly sets the painting aglow and makes the woman on the canvas far more enigmatic, mysterious and delightful. The painting is now winging its way to Holly.
As for the rest of you: Try harder, much, much harder, the next time.
Your exquisitely fair judge,
Paul Gessell, somewhere in the Yucatan
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