flag-sioux-falls-copyright-SLE

No surprise. I spent about 30 minutes on my design and mulled over about 5 different designs and decided to submit one. I felt it was strong. I have been a graphic designer for over 20 years and an artist for my entire life, picking up a pencil when I was about four. I have learned that I don’t let my feelings get hurt when I don’t win. Life is not about winning, it is about doing good work. I try to do GOOD WORK. Sometimes I fail, sometimes I win.

Often, art is about an opinion of others, it is subjective, I am content with that. I have people buy some of my art that I personally don’t like, but I don’t fret. If it makes them happy, so be it.

If I have one regret about my design, I think I should have included more industry and technology. But I stuck to the rules and felt the simplicity of the falls and South Dakota’s unrelenting Sun was enough.

As for other criteria, I felt that the submissions should have been anonymous and based on the quality of the work. I have been in many juried shows, and most quality shows don’t allow the jurors to know the artists or their names. It is a matter of fairness.

I felt the winning design was based on bias of the jurors and I was kind of upset that a ‘local’ was not picked. I believe the winner is from South Africa. I have lived the ‘American Dream’ or lack of it in Sioux Falls and South Dakota most of my life. This town is in my veins, I know it.

Do I think some on the selection committee denied my design as a finalist because of who I am. Maybe.

Do I think my design would never get the favor of city leaders because of who I am. Maybe.

My heart is not broken, like most things in this city, especially in the arts, I have learned we tend to take the well connected low road instead of the respectable high road.

All is fair in love and war.

I think I will be submitting my design to the County Commission, but I am probably ‘to broke’ to make a model.

11 Thoughts on “I didn’t win

  1. Ol'Bubbleguts on August 2, 2014 at 7:48 am said:

    Lack of it?
    Jaded cynic in your old age.
    Thats why I come here there is always at least a couple
    of words of scathing commentary.
    I worked for 10 years as a courier for an arts
    and craft company,delivering materials to
    artists and architects.I would say 87% of them
    present crappy crap.You are in the 13% don’t feel bad.
    I must admit I clicked your invisible (free wifi I don’t use internet imagery) Betty Page you were selling link and it scared me.Everyone is a critic in this new age I know.Best pic/shoot I ever saw of Betty is here https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/12/DLR_Band_Cover.jpg/220px-DLR_Band_Cover.jpg

    Hubba hubba who doesn’t like leopard?
    In Art and Labor and 3″ 5 shot groups,..
    OBG

  2. Poly43 on August 2, 2014 at 10:46 am said:

    Listening to the slate piece I guess the top 12 were picked by voters like us, then the special panel narrowed it to 6. Those 6 presented in grand ceremony yesterday. Then the grand winner was picked. Very troubling that yours, in my estimation, the best, did not even make the top 12?

    http://www.siouxfallsflag.com

  3. Poly43 on August 2, 2014 at 10:51 am said:

    Bottom line? Your two maybe’s in your intro are not just maybe’s. You were railroaded out by????

    With that in mind, and knowing this city is run by special interest for special interest, don’t you think the number 27 flag truly represents and symbolizes SF?

  4. Dan Daily on August 2, 2014 at 2:04 pm said:

    Add a magnetic strip, raised numbers, & a security code on the back. Then, it’s a true representation for this area and city debt.

  5. 85th stuckee on August 2, 2014 at 6:36 pm said:

    Print some of yours on nylon. I’ll buy one and display in my front yard. Yours was the best. The others are not close to your artistic abilities and vision.

  6. hornguy on August 3, 2014 at 8:33 am said:

    I guess the fair people of Sioux Falls choose their flags about as well as they choose their leaders. Most of these top 12 are hideous – I mean, unless you like colors that clash and would fade easily on any piece of nylon that spends 9-15 hours a day in the sunlight.

  7. anominous on August 5, 2014 at 9:51 am said:

    House Huether’s new sigil, they left off the tennis rackets.

  8. I don’t like the one that was picked, but then I don’t see the necessity of having a city flag. I keep hearing 150 cities have flags——so what? Are we keeping up with the Jones’ again?

  9. donCoyote on August 6, 2014 at 8:41 am said:

    The problem as I see it was you were designing a flag while the Committee was looking for a “flying banner”. Details my friend, you gotta pay attention to the details.

  10. Poly43 on August 6, 2014 at 10:45 am said:

    In a very real sense the city flag should be an image of a first premier credit card.

    http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/blog/worst-credit-card-ever-hint-799-apr-oh-but-that-is-not-all.html#more-1651

    Our own mayor was the marketing director of the worst fee harvesting card scam ever. Says a lot about our home grown values. When were scam artists like huether first allowed to fleece Joe Sixpack? 1980 would be a great year to start with. Janklow gutted the usury laws, or, the limit on the interest rate a lender can charge a borrower. That opened the floodgates for greedy mega banks to open operations in SF. Back in 80 SF was about the same size town as Sioux City. Not anymore. Back in its heyday, and before online billing was available, the SF post office mail processing plant handled as much mail daily as cities many times our size. Why? Credit card payments and card solicitations like the one huether pimped for in my first link above.

    PBS and it’s Frontline program did a great piece on this industry and SF back in 2004. I probably watched that program at least a dozen times. But now if you go to Frontline there are a couple of programs you can only view now by purchasing a DVD. Both about the credit card fee harvesting industry. So….even places like PBS can be bought for the right price.

    A transcript is still available if you dig deep enough. Great read….and if you do read it, then you too will understand why the city flag should indeed be an image of a credit card.

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/etc/script.html

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