3rd Annual Halloween Art Contest (Results)

Ok one last time lol. First of all though since my post was for some reason deleted, I wish to once again say that I am not posting this from the perspective of a sore loser, I did not enter the contest since I have only 2 creative outsets, tattoo designs, and as much as I like GW I wasnt about to get inked for the sake of a game, and Clothing, which in my mind would not qualify as art. I DO appreciate the time and effort that has gone into the costumes however, since I doubt that I could have made them without a serious time commitment. To make them without any prior training or long term experiance is a serious achivement
As for what I consider my own work to be, It is NOT art yes I am often proud of it, and appreciate the aesthetic beauty I have created but its not art.
Costume for costumes sake, contributes to art, for example KiyaKoreena said that her idea was "guild wars trick or treat" the concept was a sound one, but the final execution was not since they were not shown trick or treating, or in any Halloween themed setting.
However if a costume is created primarily as an artistic installation to convey a message through the virtue of its existence then it would then be art. By that I dont mean "people dress up at Halloween, this is representative of a halloween costume" I mean that it at its core communicates and emotion, concept, or a message.
The best example I can give, look at your mobile/cell phone. It was designed by a team of people over countless man hours, its aesthetics were intended to communicate an image, and style. Thousands more hours will have been spent bringing it to the market, a lot of sweat and stress will have been put into the object that you take for granted every day, and thats just for the way it looks, the inner components and functions of the phone will have had a similar story. Your phone however is not art. Its sleek lines, colourful or chromed shell, the deliberate setting of the screen and tactile buttons for all of thier beauty do not qualify that object as art, if they did anything that has ever been put into manufacture would be art. However if you then took that phone, and locked it inside a glass box to represent modern societies refusal to communicate, it would become art. You will have used an expressive medium to capture the essence of a concept.

I agree completely with unkillable cat's analogy: if you then took that (manufactured) phone, and locked it inside a glass box to represent modern societies refusal to communicate, it would become art. You will have used an expressive medium to capture the essence of a concept.

My kids and I spent 16 hours manufacturing a costume and scythe (and Koreena spent much longer than that!) We then stuffed Rock Star Allie inside of the costume (against her will) and made her hold a scythe to represent the evils of modern society perpetuating the deliberate torture of children by rotting their teeth away in a holiday pushed upon society by sugar barons out of pure capitalistic greed!

You will be happy to know that my daughter cast her enchantments and mowed down any little old ladies who were tools of the sugar companies that gave her candy on Halloween. Each little old lady counted as 2 sunspear points and by 7:30 pm, when it was time to go to bed, she had reached Sunspear Commander. She still has all her teeth and can now plan her artistic medium to warn society about the evils of the easter bunny.

Oh that is just way too cute

Lets put it this way. You do not believe it is art. That does not make it so to the rest of the world. This is the point other posters are trying to get across to the detractors. Art is not a black and white notion. What about the mass produced reproductions of pieces? Are they no longer art because they were manufactured? A single item crafted has beauty which defines art and though you may not see it there will be others that surely will. Some people see art in the most common of things. Your stance would seem to say their views are invalidated. It has already been posted that the team that ran and judged this contest disagree with you and do consider costumes themselves in the catagory of art for the season this contest was in.

Not in a Halloween themed setting? Sorry, but that is what Halloween looks like in the area we live. It may not fit your predefined notion so you are projecting on that one. Pointing my kids in front of a door holding a sack or pail would not showcase the work very well and I dont think is needed to get across what they are or what they would do later. I do not believe that suddenly striking a pose changes something into "art" either. The feelings poured into creating a piece lend to that. Some may view as functional, some will see more than that.

Personally I do not see a phone in a glass box as art. My opinion of those kind of items as 'art' is not suitable to post. You do though, so that is your opionion but it does not make it fact for everyone. I guess all this rambling is simply to everyone: Agree to disagree, because when it comes to 'art' it is subjective and please dont say that your belief is the only true one. My replying to these has been to try and get that point across but I guess I was too focused on saying "Yes it can be". This thread would have been better used simply to congratulate winners, for people to showcase their works that didnt get posted, and to share ideas to help with future ones. Time to go start planning the Wintersday entry.

How do you people get your kids to bed that early?? So jealous....

We learned few people are resistant to the sweet wide eyed look of an Asura. Should have used it for a more nefarious purpose. Ah well.

Cast: lullaby of speed
you need 100% energy (24/7), casting time 3 hours before bedtime and recharge time you need lots of rest after that (infinite) hours
imprint good memory in child's mind for a life time then you send them out the house when they grow up.

not possible for 2 reasons (besides the previously mentioned):
1 I no longer have the art in question I gave it to my nieces to play with (and hey maybe next year I can finagle them into a costume ) and I am told it didnt make it thru the weekend....
2 I deleted all the photos in a fit of rage after I found out I didnt win......

so no can do.

Omg... One winner from Finland. Onnittelut/Congraz!

Koreena, love the pics! Your kids are truly adorable! And I loved reading about how you made everything. I'd love to try my hand at a little more costuming one of these days, and I love reading how other people pull things off. And two kids or not, I think you look great! :: hugs ::

I mean setting the expectation upfront (heh sorry I wasn't very clear, I keep having that problem lately, I think it's too much caffiene OMG coffee ). I saw that they were broken out in the results and that was awesome - I think that was exactly the right thing to do. You don't even have to count the winners, the winners' page says right there that they were half of one and half of the other! I'm more suggesting that next year saying that some winners would come from each pool when the contest is launched would help. I don't think it would have mattered this year as I get the impression the breaking out into two groups happened after you saw all the awesome entries.

Me, I want a little Ritualist doll like the one with the fabulous hair (darn, might be time to clean out my real life storage and find all my old dolls so I can find one to make into an Elinora or Oseldine doll)!

-kelkel

Art is whatever the observer perceives it to be. Me, I'm not wild on the costumes because I instantly think LARPer, which is lame. That doesn't mean it's bad, or even that it shouldn't have won, it's just that it doesn't do much for me. Clearly a lot of effort went into it, and they came out really well, congratulations on winning.

People trying to decree what is and isn't art are fooling themselves, you can't speak for everyone else. Personally, I like the melandru statue and the jack-o-lantern most because I go nuts for intricate detailing and whatnot, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Sorry, but you're wrong here. The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre both have costume wings - why? Because fashion is art, and costuming is fashion. Whatever our individual credentials here, the history of art is defined in a fairly definitive fashion by what is in those two museums. And fashion made it in.

Also, a builder is definitely an artist - I believe the term is "architect" in fact, and architecture has been one of the three primary branches of art (painting and sculpture being the others, natch, and more recently joined by photography) for hundreds of years.

A work of art is "major" or "minor" because of the talent that goes into it - not the medium.

I think you may have been trying to make this argument earlier. Yes, it was established in the early twentieth century that it's the idea (and not the execution) that makes something art; but this is a relatively recent development, and it competes with a much longer identification of art with craft - and, as you suggested, with garden-variety skilled labor.

Your point is, at best, debatable.

Thank you! That is exactly what I have been thinking the whole time. I have
been to both, and other museums that had costumes displayed. If those
curators considered them art, doesn't that give costumes some credibility
as art?

http://www.guildwars.com/images/cont...ner05-page.jpg
Lucky lil girl, she needs a Charrslaying Scythe to defend herself, I haven't seen a Charr around here in ages.

I understand the request, and the motivation behind it. But I learned long ago, when I used to judge entries in children's art contests, that to set a firm numerical division in advance of the contest judging isn't a good idea. One year, we were forced to give prizes to some really mediocre pieces of art, while neglecting art that was really exceptional, because we had a finite number to award in each category. I'm happy with the way the Halloween Contest went this year, and it's likely we'll do it again that way in the future. That assures that only the topmost pieces of art are put into the "winning pool" and if, as happened this year, the judges find that there are an equal number in each category that rise to the top of the mass judging, so much the better.

Love the humour. But all is not what you thought. You see, while you believed Allie was setting things right in the world, I know the truth. I slipped her three extra Butterfingers when you weren't looking. So there!

Did you and your husband carry treat bags, too? Imagine my alarm when a mom crowding 40 shoved her bag under my outstretched hand, nearly mowing down her four-year-old in an attempt to score the last bag of Peanut M&Ms!

everything is art.

grading art as "best" is just stupid.

art with children in it tends to win.

how about next year everyone sends in pictures of dressed up kids. We all know that theres a fat chance of say...a pair of hands nailed to a keyboard and a blown out monitor full of feces winning really.

Uhh lulz, the never-ending "what is art?" discussion. If costumes should somehow be separated from other entries, then what exactly makes pumpkin carvings or skill icon mosaiques qualify as art? I think the diversity of all entries was awesome enough, and adding different categories or whatnot would just complicate the contest.

Or maybe it should just be called "Halloween Arts&Crafts Contest" instead :) (Arts and Crafts movement btw).

Treg Q, why thank you/kiitos paljon >:D!

No, this year we just took them to the little event at the grocery store and then to my in-law's restaurant. The neighbourhoods around us dont really do the Halloween thing. Parents really shouldnt try scoring candy... they are supposed to raid their kids bags afterwards removing the "unsafe" ones.

And Im happy to say my prize pack arrived yesterday That mouse is nice (husband is using it, Im too used to my trackball) and my pins are happily in the case with the ones from last year. Almost arrived on my bday but close enough (hehe, even my mom forgot and phoned the day after.)

I'm a bit baffled by this costume.

I take it the body is a mannequin and the top is a photoshopped face, right?

Not that it changes anything, but I was just curious.

It's a shame there weren't more mesmer outfits. I've always felt the art team at Anet did their best work with the Mesmers. It seemed like all the Mesmer outfits were based on the "courtly" armor sets.

Next year we need someone to dress as Livia! ^^