Last week in my Link Dump, I posted about a high school art contest sponsored by the Virginia Pilot that disqualified the two winning entries due to nudity being inappropriate. I want to revisit that story.

The first judge the Pilot brought in to judge the contest was Aaron De Groft, director of the Muscarelle Museum of Art at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg. He selected Nancy “Beth” Reid’s nude self-portrait as the winner. It was declared inappropriate, and a new judge was brought in. Scott Howe, education director at the Chrysler Museum, acting as the second judge selected Jasmine Childs’ nude torso sculpture as the winner. It was also declared inappropriate. Finally, the Pilot used members of their marketing and advertising department to choose the winner, because, obviously, who knows best what good art is than someone working in the marketing department of a newspaper, right?

All three works can be seen here.

Having now seen the three works, I can make a somewhat informed opinion on the matter. The first two works chosen as winners are outstanding works of art for 17 year olds. The official winner? Not so much. Nothing wrong with it, but it isn’t really as outstanding as the other two. That’s just my opinion.

The nude human form has been intrinsically tied to human creative expression since mankind was sitting in caves and started being creative. Some of our most revered and lauded historical artworks are, in fact, nude human forms. If the Pilot didn’t want any nasty, nasty nudity in their art contest, they should have put that in the rules before the contest started, not after the judging was over and they didn’t agree with the outcome. To change the rules at that stage is flat out wrong and cheats all the participants. It makes the competition a sham.

Once again, kudos to the people who are working to award the ladies originally chosen as the winners of the event, and a smack on the back of the head to the Virginia Pilot for being such prudes and rigging a competition to get the results they wanted. Bad form. They need to get out of the art contest field, because it’s obvious they don’t know a thing about it.