2013 Creative Outdoor Award: My Bird!

I never win in the lottery. Nor major prizes.

When I was a teenager, I entered a photograph competition with a snapshot of my swimmer friend approaching a turn in a butterfly race, and was mad as hell that I received second prize, which was a pocket camera (with Bavarian colours), of no better quality than the cheap camera I had used to take the picture in the first place. I had so wanted to win first prize, a reflex camera, which I couldn’t afford because I would have to save my pocket-money for years and years on end, nor had any chance of receiving as a birthday present. (Looking back at it now, although I still wouldn’t appreciate that particular prize, I probably would have felt a bit more pride at coming in second.)

In 2008, I won a prize for handquilting at the Quilt Festival in Radolfzell, on Lake Constance, which had been donated by, of all companies imaginable, Bernina. That prize I really appreciated – first of all because of the quaint combination, handquilting and Bernina, and, secondly, because it could only be redeemed in the Bernina shop at Steckborn, Switzerland. I invested it fully into a large acrylic quilting table for my Bernina machine, which I might have been too stingy to buy – at least for quite a while longer -  if I would have had to pay for it in full. I still use it when I am using that machine, and it has been a cherished assistant in many a quilt's quilting.

Whenever I do play the lottery, which usually only happens when a large jackpot is waiting for a winner, I consider myself lucky if I win half of what I invested to play...

Nevertheless, when I came across the call for entries for the 3rd Textile OutdoorAward: My Bird! on Silke Bosbach’s website, I decided on the spur of the moment that I would try to participate. 

This picture is a shot of the announcement as it appears on
my computer screen, taken with my current digital camera,
several generations after that camera with which I entered the photo competition many years ago.

Because the call for entry at first really was a call for application to enter. A drawing would determine who of the applicants would be allowed to participate in the end.

Lo and behold – last week I received the mail that I had been chosen. Out of 247 applications, mine was amongst the I-don’t-know-how-many. I could be one out of twenty, fifty, or 247, it did not say. (Correction: after checking out her website, I now know that I am one of fifty.)

Today I went ahead with the procedure: signed that I would pay for my own fare should I be one of the chosen 10 finalists who are expected – no, obliged! – to participate in the prize ceremony in March where the order of placement will be announced, for example. Pre-address and pre-stamp an envelope in which I will receive My Bird, which I then have to do something to or with. Fill out an application form, of course. Agree to pay 20 euros in case I should NOT send in my finished piece before the deadline runs out (Aug. 9).

So I don’t know what I got myself into, as I don’t really have a clue as to what kind of blank or template will come to me. But I will be doing 3D, and a bird at that, because I sure don’t want to pay 20 euros for not doing it. I do hope lots of ideas will fly in on wings once this is under way!

(And I won’t start thinking about what I will do about that mandatory presence at the award ceremony on that particular weekend in March, for which I already have a teaching commitment – because I never win major prizes anyway...)