You might have noticed that it was very quiet around the dedes lately and I have been putting photographs up on my blog. I did this as I was biding my time and holding my breath.

I have entered an installation of five dede puppets into the Wallace Art Awards, a very reputable New Zealand award for contemporary visual art. Yesterday I got an email saying that my work has been accepted as one of the Finalists. I accidentally opened the email without preparing myself and sat there squealing for a couple of minutes. It must have been such a strange noise as a businessman who has his office further down the corridor came running in thinking I was having a heart attack!

It is an annual award. You send in a photograph of your work first. From this a panel of three notable artists select the finalists. If  your work has been selected, the next step is to send in the real thing. From there the work is further whittled down and some selected work goes into an exhibition from which the winners are chosen. The prizes are overseas residencies to further your artistic development.

The grand opening is on the 3rd of September, so I still have to hold my breath for a bit. But I can assure you for me and the dedes it means a lot that they are accepted. Getting thus far is just tremendous.

On a less serious note:

This week was supposed to be bird week on my blog. These images were the ones I had originally selected for today. These are shags sitting in a tree. You have to look at their heads. I call the sequence Air Acrobatics.