I’ve watched IPC since I was ten years old.
It’s been 27 years of IPC in some shape or form. I haven’t entered all of those years, but I was close by with family members entering since I was ten. The “artist” category has grown from the days of manually retouching prints (or negative retouching!) with dyes, paints, and pencils and presenting layouts with actual paper (gasp, remember those days?)! Now it’s evolved to heavily Photoshop or Corel Painter reliant artistry ranging from elaborate composite work to fully hand painted imagery. There are the rare events that true oils, with nothing digital are submitted (hello, Linda Weaver, you talented beast!). There has been a huge shift in the artist category in the last 27 years indeed. I’ve watched, I’ve entered, heck, I even became a juror. And with that amount of time, I propose a mental shift, and birth of a subcategory (s) to keep up with the times.
“I think it’s...