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Hugo Reading 5--sort of.
Jul. 20th, 2014 07:04 pmOkay, looking at the fan art to choose best Fan Artist probably doesn't really count as reading, does it?
Oddly enough, my Hugo packet download included only three of the five artists. I don't know if this is because the others were left out of the packet, or because my packet didn't download properly (the folder for this category didn't come through in the first download, and in another category I was minus one finalist, but when I re-downloaded, that finalist's entry appeared and so did the Fan Artist folder.) In any case I found examples of the other two artists work by googling, so I was able to gather some information to evaluate all of them.
5) Steven Stiles. Um. I wonder if he really thought through which images he wanted in the Hugo packet. The first image of his I opened was two aliens comparing genitalia. It was...hmm.... It was ...different. But it didn't impress me in any other way, I'm afraid.
4) Brad W. Foster. I enjoyed his stuff, but it was a bit cartoony for my taste. The brains at the shopping mall was fun. But I don't understand what use brains have for all the stuff they had apparently been buying. But while Webb's work (below) made me want to know the story, these just made me shrug and move on.
3) Spring Schoenhuth. I had to google her. She works in jewelry, which I found hard to compare to the graphic arts nature of the other entries, but I agree that a jeweler is an artist, and can think of no more appropriate category for her. I couldn't find very many pictures of her work, but I liked what I saw, particularly the rocket neclace.
2) Sarah Webb. Oh my. Her paintings all make me want to know the story behind them. I love the girl in the gondola, and the city with the snow on it, and the person climbing up the mountain, and the people riding the mammoths. The mimmoths got especially excited over the last one. I love these with a powerful love that put her in first place in my heart for a while. I love this kind of semi-photograph-like style and the many details in each picture, and I wanted to read the stories that (surely) went with them.
1) Mandie Manzano. I had to google her too. I spent a long time staring at her pictures on the web. I think her mastery of technique is even greater than Webb's, and that is why I put her in first place, but I have to admit I'm a bit distanced by the lack of faces in her work. I think she is working in stained glass, and the constraints of the medium (glass is easier to cut in some directions than in others) make faces very hard to do, but it is hard for me to relate to people whose faces I never see. But the utterly luminous colors entrance me, and the dreamlike settings make that distancing seem more natural.
Manzano and Webb may yet switch places, and there was nothing here that made me say "oh come *on*; you are just trolling me now" but I strongly prefer the first two over the last three.
Oddly enough, my Hugo packet download included only three of the five artists. I don't know if this is because the others were left out of the packet, or because my packet didn't download properly (the folder for this category didn't come through in the first download, and in another category I was minus one finalist, but when I re-downloaded, that finalist's entry appeared and so did the Fan Artist folder.) In any case I found examples of the other two artists work by googling, so I was able to gather some information to evaluate all of them.
5) Steven Stiles. Um. I wonder if he really thought through which images he wanted in the Hugo packet. The first image of his I opened was two aliens comparing genitalia. It was...hmm.... It was ...different. But it didn't impress me in any other way, I'm afraid.
4) Brad W. Foster. I enjoyed his stuff, but it was a bit cartoony for my taste. The brains at the shopping mall was fun. But I don't understand what use brains have for all the stuff they had apparently been buying. But while Webb's work (below) made me want to know the story, these just made me shrug and move on.
3) Spring Schoenhuth. I had to google her. She works in jewelry, which I found hard to compare to the graphic arts nature of the other entries, but I agree that a jeweler is an artist, and can think of no more appropriate category for her. I couldn't find very many pictures of her work, but I liked what I saw, particularly the rocket neclace.
2) Sarah Webb. Oh my. Her paintings all make me want to know the story behind them. I love the girl in the gondola, and the city with the snow on it, and the person climbing up the mountain, and the people riding the mammoths. The mimmoths got especially excited over the last one. I love these with a powerful love that put her in first place in my heart for a while. I love this kind of semi-photograph-like style and the many details in each picture, and I wanted to read the stories that (surely) went with them.
1) Mandie Manzano. I had to google her too. I spent a long time staring at her pictures on the web. I think her mastery of technique is even greater than Webb's, and that is why I put her in first place, but I have to admit I'm a bit distanced by the lack of faces in her work. I think she is working in stained glass, and the constraints of the medium (glass is easier to cut in some directions than in others) make faces very hard to do, but it is hard for me to relate to people whose faces I never see. But the utterly luminous colors entrance me, and the dreamlike settings make that distancing seem more natural.
Manzano and Webb may yet switch places, and there was nothing here that made me say "oh come *on*; you are just trolling me now" but I strongly prefer the first two over the last three.
