I have been entering the Mineola (Texas) League of the Arts art show for the past 3 years, making this my fourth. None of my paintings has ever won anything. Last night Mama and I attended the opening reception for this year's show. We were walking around the room that had the Advanced Division paintings, finding mine. We came to the first one of mine that we saw--no ribbon. Second one--no ribbon. I started saying "0 for 1, 0 for 2, 0 for 3, 0 for 4...." Then I looked, and squealed, "I got a ribbon!!!!!!" My painting, "Garden Bench," got an honorable mention!!!!!!! This is a special honor because this show only has 4 divisions (Amateur, Advanced, Professional, and Reproduction), with 2 classes in each division (Under Glass and Not Under Glass). So the competition is stiffer than if there were a lot of different classes. And I FINALLY won something! The judge for this year's show was Sherri Hall Shelton, an artist from Houston. She critiqued each and every painting during the judging. I got to talk to her some at the reception last night, and she gave me some very good advice, mostly about improving my framing choices. The important thing to me is she LIKED my paintings. Doing good paintings is the hard part! Mama and I are so proud!