the strangelove coronart contest

Soon after the United States started shutting down—well, some of it at least, because god knows how spring breaking must go on come hell, high water, or deadly pandemic—we decided to throw an impromptu art contest for anyone who wished to creatively span the unexpected time indoors. Me, I've always had a soft spot for art contests, seeing as that's how I got my start in the first place, so I hurriedly posted up the announcement on Instagram a week ago not knowing quite what to expect; or, for that matter, not knowing the few rules I probably should have mentioned and only realized in hindsight. Two in particular come to mind, the first being a "friends and family" clause (more on that later), the second stating the work should have been of an entirely new nature and not something created and posted back in say 2018. The bottom line, however, is that this was all meant to be just for fun, so who gives a shit, right? Right! So without further to do or ado here's a look at our five runner-ups and the winner of the whole art shebang.

Wait, who the hell am I kidding… I mean, far be it from me to ever get to the point of anything in an efficient or concise manner, so before I do any of that I guess I should also add how f'ing difficult it is to actually "judge" something like this, because art is wholly subjective: what catches one person's eye may not necessarily be pleasing to anyone else. Seriously, and in all honestly, to this day I have no idea why I was plucked out of over 600 other entrants back in 1988 for the Powell-Peralta art contest, because I know what I submitted and I'm not entirely sure I would have hired myself based on some of the other artists' work* I'd seen. That said, I'd like to sincerely thank everyone who took the time and effort to get creative with us and I urge you to keep doing so regardless of the cause. Skateboarding may have many more "athletes" now than it once did, but it still relies on the creative oddballs and DIY derelicts to keep the soul alive and kicking against the grain.

All right, I'm off the pulpit. Here are the five runner-ups in no particular order:

 

And the winner is…

So there it is. Congratulations to all the finalists and thanks again to everyone who threw in on our art throw down. I would like to make one last extra special honorable mention, because midway through the contest our very own Max Murphy, aka @hankscorsese on the Instagram, contacted us to say his dad Lawrence, aka @lawrencemurphy3330, had posted a few entries—and pretty kick ass ones at that (shown below). Unfortunately this is also where the whole "friends and family" clause would have come in to play, so out of respect to everyone else and avoid a whole McMillion$ scandal we thought it best to do the right thing. But damn! Talk about a cool dad, right?!?

*******************************

* This includes the graffitied refrigerator door that was sent in—no shit, someone seriously did this! Talk about thinking outside the ice box…