[Garth Herrick]

The Portrait Society of America experience was life-changing! I met so many wonderful artists (and celebtrities), many from this Forum. My painting was displayed with the twelve other finalists in the "Lake Anne" exhibition room at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Reston, Virginia, about fifteen miles outside of Washington, D.C. Ther seemed to be about eight hundred conference attendees although my numbers may be off. Supposedly, well over a thousand portraits were entered into their international competition, of which just a baker's dozen made the final cut for exhibition. Accross the board the quality of the finalist's portraits were superb, and it was indeed an honor to be included in their midst. It will literally take me weeks to follow up on all the important contacts that were made in a thousand handshakes. In the end I came out with an Honors Award with a little plexiglas "oscar" to display, a nice check and a complete pochade box from Utrechts.

I'll include some pictures: There were some of Simmie Knox and me, but they did not turn out so well. The first is of my Honors Award; the second was typical of the weekend with hundreds of attendees trying to snap their own souvenir pictures; Third, more of the same; Fourth, the PSOA staff having their group photo in the exhibition room.

There is too much to add than can be contributed in one post, so hopefully I'll expand upon the weekend in a follow up post.

I had a wonderful time!

Garth