by Elaine Walker
The Art Show is a SwanCon tradition. In this it is not so different from many SF cons over the world, and provides an opportunity for the artistic among the SwanCon attendees to produce some art of a fannish nature, or even just links to fandom in some way. One of my favourites from the 2010 Art Show was the Portal cake shown above. Unfortunately, while I took pictures of most of the entrants for this one, I was not quite advertent enough to get a shot of exactly who each one was by. So if you are able to identify one that doesn’t have a name with it, please do comment on flickr or here to let us know who it was by. If you see your own stuff up there and do not want it visible then again please let us know and we will remove it from the net (as much as anything can be).
Some of the art is purely for display at these shows, but some is available for sale. Usually this is by some sort of bidding process, that for the nicer stuff can get quite competitive. The range of material is usually very varied, with sketches, up to full oil/acrylic paintings, sculptures, 3D art that needs glasses, furry creations such as the tarantula backpack, and the tentacle and by fans old and young. There is usually a nominal fee for entering and the Con takes a small cut if the piece sells there. There is usually one person organising it (in 2010 I think that was Stephanie Bateman-Graham), though the assistance of minions is always appreciated in setting up, making sure the proletariat don’t steal the stock 😉 and of course helping pack up. There are usually prizes also, judged often by the guests of the Con, though there is usually also a prize for the one most liked by people who looked through the Art Show and voted for the people’s choice.