The Paseo Arts District hosts the First Friday Art Walk on, you guessed it, the first friday of every month.  All the galleries are open for the evening with a wide variety of art styles and media. If you live in OKC, appreciate and enjoy art, and you’ve never been, now’s a great time to change that! And this is your official invitation to Paseo PhotoFest Opening Reception at 6pm Friday, September 6, 2019, at the Paseo Art Space Gallery, during September’s First Friday Art Walk. Go put it in your calendar real quick.  I’ll wait.

So what the heck is the Paseo PhotoFest and why would you want to go? It’s an annual photography contest and show put on by the Paseo Arts Association.  This year, I submitted a piece, and that image was accepted into the show!  According to the contest coordinator, they received nearly 250 images. She said most years, they can eliminate a lot of images right away as not up to the quality they want for the show. This year however, it was TOUGH to choose the limited number of images to include in the contest.  So this show will likely have a high level quality. And I am SUPER honored my work is included!

Here’s my almost magical story about how I came to be submitting work to this contest.  Last month in August, I met up with another photographer friend, Kurt McDaniel, at a photography exhibit on First Friday.  I am embarrassed to admit I never went to the First Friday walk before!  Don’t tell anyone! Kurt and I walked through most of the galleries and found work we admired. We had great conversations with other artists, and made new friends (shout out to OkieBoho who as it happens, lives just down the street from me!).  And we talked and dreamed about wanting to get our own work hanging in a gallery ‘someday’.

By total coincidence (or was it the universe responding to my wishes?), a day or two later, another friend posted to my FB wall a link requesting submissions for this contest. By the time I looked into it seriously, the deadline was a mere ONE DAY away! But I had done a Flash Foster session with Della from OKC Animal Welfare recently, and had fresh work nobody had seen yet.  I prepared one of her images for submission and printing, making some quick decisions about size and media, and got her submitted with a good four hours to spare!

Next I waited five days to hear whether or not my image made it into the contest.  You know, I lowered my expectations to avoid disappointment if I didn’t get in. But, even entering, and going through the decision making process about what to enter, what size, what media to print on, has been a good experience.  This is my first time entering a show at this level, and I learned a lot about the requirements. And I’ll learn more during the course of delivery, the opening reception, and of course, the show. Of course, the experience is great already since they officially accepted the work I submitted!  Now, to work on keeping my expectations low in case I don’t win anything!

Also, if you can’t take me up on this invitation to the Paseo PhotoFest reception, or First Friday, I have good news!  The exhibit will be on display at the Art Space Gallery on Paseo through September 28! You can still go see all the great photography on display without all the crowds of First Friday.  But I hope to see you there September 6! Come on out and say hi!