Nancy Lee Designs: Handmade Metal Jewelry, Objects, and Instruction

After posting about being a past Fair Queen, and continuing with the family tradition of entering things in the local fair, I thought it only “fair” (pun intended) to fill you in on the events of the weekend.

While the Indiana State Fair does not officially open until Friday, August 7, the fine people at the fair held and Open House in the Professional Fine Arts Gallery area of the Home & Family Arts building this past Sunday afternoon.  I decided to make the trip to the fairgrounds for the Professional fine Arts open house, thinking that this would be my chance to take home whatever did not get into the exhibition without waiting until the end of the fair. Plus I was secretly hoping for one of those ribbons and maybe even a cash prize!

Pod, First Prize, Professional Fine Arts:Sculpture, Indiana State Fair

Upon arrival I quickly walked on over to the area with the jewelry cases and saw that two pieces of jewelry did not receive any ribbons but were still on display, meaning they made it in the show but didn’t win a prize. Then I saw that my “Walk in the Woods” pendant received a red white and blue “Honorable Mention” ribbon. Nice!

Full of excitement and anticipation, I started to make my way towards the room with the sculpture, and was stopped short by my artist friend, Caroline Mecklin, who had also entered work. She received some Honorable Mention ribbons for her work, immediately elevating the status of “Honorable Mention” in my book, because her work is fabulous! She understood I was about to burst in anticipation of potential ribbonry, so she shooed me off to complete the task of finding my little “Pod” sculpture and anything that might be attached thereto.

So I scurried to the next room and started looking for my diminutive Pod sculpture (I don’t know why, but she is a “she”). She is copper and stands only 5″ tall, so in a room filled with lots of other, larger objects, it took awhile. Probably about a minute – an eternity at the time. On my second trip around the room, I finally spied her sitting rather non-obviously in a stair-step display with bigger works all around. And a beautiful First Place blue ribbon tied to one of her legs. Oh, joy! The feeling that swept over me was pure elation, happiness, excitement, and gratitude! Such a validation.

I know my good feelings are the result of how the judges, human people like me, felt that day they saw my little sculpture. And I recognized the talent I saw in the room – so many other, worthy artists. So many wonderful ribbon-less works of art, there was a twinge of guilt involved in my joy. But my blue ribbon made me feel wonderful,  and I’m hanging onto that. And the forthcoming premium check!

Pod, top view

Maybe some day I will tell you how Pod came about in a vision, and how a tree fell on my studio, right above the spot where I sat working on Pod…but that’s another story.