We would like to thank the 106 poets who submitted entries in the inaugural Cricket Poetry Award 2009.  The judges mentioned that the selected poems “…spoke about how cricket was interwoven with life in an unforced and natural manner…”

The ‘Live Readings’ night will consist of 20 poems and those finalists are listed below in no particular order:

• “The Siblings” by Maree Peterson
• “The Last Test” by John Gordon
• “The Catch” by Andy Kissane
• “Fantasy for White” by Rachael Treasure
• “Dream Catcher” by Kane Murphy
• “Mind Games” by Megan Jordan
• “Junior Tragics” by Jo Burnell
• “Different Strokes” by Brian Sam Hallewell
• “Ashes To Ashes (a cricket emergency)” by Joan Ross
• “A Rich, Rewarding Innings” by David Campbell
• “Camphor Laurel” by Maggie Shapley
• “Listening to the ABC” by Ian Billows
• “No Rockets” by Lydia Burke
• “Social Cricket, the Universe, and Everything” by Graeme Philipson
• “D.I.Y.” by Penelope Cottier
• “The Beautiful Game” by Louise McKenna
• “Cradle to the Grave – a Five Test Series” by Tim Slade
• “Cricket At Seaforth” by Kassandra Ellison
• “Back Then” by Jenny Collins
• “For Six” by Ron Moss

The organisers would also like to thank the judges – Adam Gibson and Jessica Halloran for their time, energy and patience on what was a very challenging weekend when reading and re-reading all poems and having to make some very hard decisions.

The top 20 poems will be read ‘live’ this Thursday by 4 actors / orators:

• Hamish Briggs
• Nicole Campbell
• Luke Carson
• Robert Edwards

These young actors will randomly select 4 poems each, contact the particular poet, rehearse the reading and prepare to ‘read & perform’ the poem in the best possible way at:

The Rugby Club,

Rugby Place

off 31 Pitt St Sydney

6:00pm – Thursday 1^st Oct (this Thursday)

Based on the reading and crowd response, the winning poem will be announced the following week on Thursday 8th Oct at the Cricket Art Prize opening and re-read to the exhibition Members Pavilion guests.

Entries for the Cricket Art Prize and the Cricket Poetry Award have officially CLOSED for 2009.

The organisers would like to thank the 218 artists and 106 poets who submitted entries.

Judging is now in progress and finalists for both Cricket Art Prize and Cricket Poetry Award will be contacted by Wednesday 30^th September 2009.

Peoples’ Choice Award to be announced at the end of the exhibition tour.

Due to the fact that the Bradman Foundation has agreed to accommodate the 2009 Cricket Art Prize exhibition at the Bradman Museum from mid-January 2010, the Peoples’ Choice Award will be announced while exhibiting there.

After completing 2 weeks at the SCG, 6 weeks in Queensland and 2 weeks at the MCG, the Cricket Art Prize exhibition will be on display at the Bradman Museum for a month.

Art buffs and cricket enthusiasts of Australia will be able to see the Cricket Art Prize exhibition first hand and the Peoples’ Choice Award votes will be collected from all around the country after exhibiting in 3 states and 4 locations via e-mail / internet vote.

Exhibition Dates and Tour:

• Members Pavilion, Sydney Cricket Ground, NSW – 8th to 25th Oct 2009
• Harrup Park, Mackay, QLD – 29th Oct to 18th Dec 2009
• Olympic Atrium, Melbourne Cricket Ground, VIC – 22nd Dec 2009 to 7th Jan 2010
• Bradman Museum, Bowral, NSW – 10th Jan to 7th Feb 2010

Macquarie bowls over the art world with its sponsorship of the Cricket Art Prize awards.

Macquarie Bank is encouraging sporting enthusiasts to get in touch with their creative side by announcing its sponsorship of the Cricket Art Prize’s Highly Commended and Peoples’ Choice categories.

The inaugural Publishers’ Cup Cricket Art Prize 2009 is calling for entries from artists to submit a painting or composition that represents the life of the game, from a backyard cricket scene to a local cricket team competition.

In recognition of Australia’s budding artists and the influence of one of Australia’s favourite national sports, Macquarie will be supporting the Cricket Art Prize as it makes its debut at the Sydney Cricket Ground in October 2009.

Macquarie’s sponsorship of the two awards demonstrates its wider commitment to cricket. In September 2008, Macquarie became the official bank and credit card of The Sydney Cricket & Sports Ground Trust as part of a four year partnership that introduced credit card payment facilities at the Sydney Cricket Ground and Sydney Football Stadium for the first time.

Head of Macquarie Banking and Financial Services Group, Peter Maher, said: “Macquarie has a long-standing commitment to the development of sport and art in the community and I am delighted we are able to unite our interests in these two areas through this unique prize.

“By bringing together the passion of cricket enthusiasts and the skills of talented artists across the country I look forward to seeing some impressive works of art that will resonate with each and every one of us whether we’re a sports fan or an art-lover.”

The overall winner, who will receive a prize of $20,000 for their award-winning composition, and the recipient of the Highly Commended Award will be announced at the opening event on 8 October 2009, with the winner of the Peoples Choice Award to be announced on 15 October 2009. The finalists’ entries will be on display at the Members Pavilion, Sydney Cricket Ground from 9 October 2009 to 25 October 2009.

Cricket Art Prize opening at the Members Pavilion of the Sydney Cricket Ground

Impartial Judging – Cricket Art Prize

To ensure unbiased judgment of a wine, it should be served blind – that is, without the taster(s) having seen the label or bottle shape.  This is referred to as “Blind Tasting”.  A taster’s judgment can be prejudiced by knowing details of a wine, such as geographic origin, price, reputation, colour or other considerations.

So with the Cricket Art Prize, during the initial image pre-selection phase of the competition, all entries will be viewed by the 5 member judges-panel without knowing the name of the artist, to ensure impartial judgment of paintings.

Anneke van der Pal, one of the judges of the Cricket Art Prize stated “With art prizes or art competitions, I feel a “Blind Tasting” approach should be applied as there are charges from some artistic quarters that the final selection of paintings for exhibition are influenced by the ‘name’ of the artist(s)”.

Scientific research has long demonstrated the power of suggestion in perception as well as the strong effects of ‘reputation’, so a judge can be prejudiced by knowing the identity of an artist.

Not even the most experienced judges are immune to the strong effects of celebrity. Therefore, the need for impartial judging is required to ensure a system of fairness and a ‘level playing field’.

So with the Cricket Art Prize, paintings will be judged purely on the basis of subject matter, composition, narrative, technique, execution and aesthetic values.  These characteristics are sometimes referred to as fulfilled intent, skill, uniqueness, inherent meaning and beauty.

In response to numerous enquiries from artists, artists agents and galleries, the organisers need to stress that artists entries must conform to the basic terms and conditions of the Cricket Art Prize i.e. that their painting should represent or depict life in and around the game of cricket or aspects of the sport of cricket.

Their work may be figurative – paintings which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational; art which represents human figures; the term figurative has been used to refer to any form of art that retains strong references to the real world.

Their painting may be a still-life – a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects or cricket paraphernalia – stumps & bails, pads, gloves, caps, scorebooks etc in a natural and /or incidental setting of backyard cricket, street cricket, beach cricket, social-cricket or local club cricket.

Acceptable media are: Paintings – oil, acrylic, water-colour or mixed media on canvass or artists paper with a cubist, impressionist, tonalist, fauvist, surrealist, pop art, futurist, hard-edge, modern, naïve, orientalist, pointillist, precisionist, primitive, regionalist or romanticist style.

A portrait painting of a cricketer (past or present) is not, by the organisers’ definition, a cricket painting, but a portrait and the Cricket Art Prize is not a portrait art prize.

IMPORTANT CHANGES TO ENTRY CONDITIONS – Friday, October 24, 2008

TWO KEY POINTS

(1) After an extraordinary meeting of the Publishers Cup Inc Committee, due to interest from artists in New Zealand and Australia-wide, the Cricket Art Prize will have an image pre-selection process i.e. a CD or DVD containing high quality jpeg images of the artist’s entry must be delivered by post or courier together with a completed entry form.

This pre-selection process was adopted to save artists the trouble and expense of shipping their ‘physical-work’ long distances overseas or interstate for initial judging before their entry made it through as a finalist.

All artists entries accepted for hanging and the opening exhibition will be contacted via e-mail and text message and the finalists’ physical entry must be delivered by 6th Oct 2009 – see complete terms and conditions on the website http://www.publisherscup.org.au/entry/

(2) At the same meeting, it was collectively decided that the Cricket Art Prize will be ACQUISITIVE – that being the winning work will become the property of the Publishers’ Cup Inc or their nominated beneficiary and it is expected that all finalists work (the rest of the exhibition) including the “Highly Commended” and the “Peoples’ Choice” awards should be for sale.