So You Want to be an Artist 2012 - Finalists!

So the drawn-out, dirty, no-holds-barred, street-fighting, world of social networks did their thing and the 12 finalists are set. It was a bit wonky to follow, but that just added to the nail-biting and exciting finish. Some came out early with big support, then suddenly others caught up and passed them in votes. Finalists - please write in and tell us about how you marketed your work: Facebook? Mum and Dad calling everyone? Special Interest Groups? Celebrity Endorsements? One finalist we know did all those things. We like the democracy of facebook voting, BUT, so many good pieces were left behind. ALL the entries deserve to have been seen by the judges. May we suggest for next year two streams? One for the crowd to vote on, and a separate one just to let the experts do their thing. Congratulations you twelve! See em here http://makeart.gallery.ca/gallery/finalists

so you want to be 2012 - 15 days to go!

This piece by Anika Kitka shows tons of imagination and strong craft. An amazing drawing. SHE NEEDS VOTES. Like it here http://makeart.gallery.ca/gallery/details/719/

Save PCVS

http://photobucket.com" target="_blank">"> This is one of many banners created by students at Peterborough Collegiate & Vocational School and used to decorate downtown Peterbourough in the summer of 2011. PCVS is in danger of closing despite a strident campaign to prevent such a thing from happening. Even Rick Mercer weighs in!

self-titled

Four of ESA's grade 12 students have banded together to create the collective "self-titled". Just freakin awesome. Appearing here: Two of Madeleine Watson's tiny Collages, Andrea Chartrand's massive composition two (and that must be her in the shot), one of Daniel Hritzkiv's Portraits of my Friends and Jean-Luc Lindsay's Job-Luc. Hritzkiv put it all together to create the site last year and it received lots of attention. Check it out at http://self-titled.ca/ What are they doing now?

So You Want to ... go to ESA

Hey, two students from the Etobicoke School of the Arts are doing alright in the National Gallery Contest, but both need your votes to crack the top 12: Matt Ledwidge's Landscape-tools and Alex Bailey's Regent Park One are almost too mature for this stage of the competition where (after friends and family are pressed into making their likes known) the public votes tend to consume the most easily digestible pieces. Anyways, Matt got in touch with us and directed us to ESA's site where we learned that he and Alex were entered into the makeart competition. We were pretty pumped to realize their entries were part of our personal top 12 entries. Matt - don't be subtle - ask for a like - ya gotta be obvious! Again, we don't like artist statements, but theirs are good at supporting their own artworks. ESA can be found at http://www.esainfo.ca/