2nd Place Winner of the 2009 Be Your Art Writing Competition. Co-published with the North Shoreian Magazine, February 2010.

By Anna Katsavos

It smells of a scavenger hunt, each of us waiting for the cue, each of us ready to pounce.  We take our positions, sit up straight, and smile, all of us flashing our biggest, toothy grins.  Forty-five dollars poorer, we’re gathered in a swanky city club, sitting at our designated tables, each of us perched on her seat, emitting vibes that beg, “Pick me, pick me.”  This eight-minute speed-dating, a bizarre, rate-a-mate version of musical chairs, is already more than I can handle.  It’s worse than I had imagined, worse than that school-yard feeling of waiting to be chosen.

Ding!  Ding!  Every eight minutes, Ding! Ding! I mean come on–eight minutes?  It takes me longer than that to pick out bottled water. Read more…

Third Place Winner of the 2009 Be Your Art Writing Competition. Co-published with the North Shoreian Magazine, December 2009.

By Micki Peluso

Hank’s eyelids opened with aching slowness, blinking away the bright wash of sunlight spilling into his room. He squinted out the window at a high, pale sun. Past noon. Damn. He’d overslept. Most mornings he enjoyed watching the sun rise over the Palo Duro canyons, deep below the Texas plains—last night’s binge at the Rock n’ Bull Saloon had laid him low.

Rubbing a hand across his face, Hank swung his feet over the side of the bed and reached for his boots.  He frowned as he looked for the other one and found it on his foot. He’d slept, shirtless, one boot still on, caught up in his pulled down denims which hung at his knees. Read more…

We have a few new features on BeYourArt.com. These two features really expand the potential of the site and we look forward to community collaboration.

Listings

This is broken up into five categories. General Listings, which does what it says in being the catch all. Workshops and Studio Space listings will helps artists learn and find housing. We also have a free Marketplace for artists to sell stuff much like Craigslist.

Lastly, is a fun new idea entitled the Exchange, which will allow artists to off their artistic services in exchange for other artistic services (since we lack money why not revert to the old barter system). Prime example is the potter can give a few of his prize clay pots away to a photographer who will exchange take pictures of all of her art to post online. There is great potential with this method of interaction.

Questions & Answers

There is also a new section, which will allow artists to post questions and the community then can answer to the best of their knowledge. We really like this idea in that it cuts to the core of community collaboration.

Other Updates

We did a bit of refinement to the navigation and the home page. If you have anymore suggestions please let us know.

Congratulations on the winners and thank you to everyone else for writing wonderful stories, making the selection process difficult, but well worth it.

1st Place

“Happily Ever After”
By Julie Wilson
http://www.beyourart.com/profile/Julie

2nd Place

“Just Keep Smiling”
By Anna Katsavos
http://www.beyourart.com/profile/AnnaKatsavos

3rd Place

“The Last Gasp“
By Micki Peluso
http://www.beyourart.com/profile/MickiPeluso

*Don’t forget to subscribe to BeYourArt.com’s podcast on iTunes.
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=317258161