It's New Year's Eve! It's gonna be 2013! And, we're going to try something new this year. At the end of every month in 2013, there will be a drawing from among all the Infinite Art Tournament votes cast that month. The person chosen will win a fabulous prize!
The fabulous prizes will be a choice of at least:
- Your very own copy of The Art Book (Phaidon, 2005 edition), an extremely cool book of art reproductions, heavy on the images, light on the text, and easy on the eyes.
- a $20 donation -- or a $30 matching donation -- to a visual arts museum or charity of your choice.
- a $25 donation towards the arts charity of MY choice, which would be the Portland Art Museum.
- a batch of Michael5000's regionally famous oatmeal almond chocolate-chip cookies.*
Other options might be thrown in there if they become available! But even as things stand -- pretty slick, no?
Now! From February on, only the votes cast during the month in question and for contests posted during the month in question will be counted as entries. But for January, as special incentive to go back and catch up on any voting you let slide during the busy busy holiday season, new votes on matches from past months will also count as entries!! You can use this handy link to go back and check if you missed any matches!
(No, you don't have to wait until tomorrow. December 31st votes will count too.)
I Anticipate Questions About How This Will Work
Q: How will this work?
A: Every time you cast an art tournament vote, you get one entry. If you vote in six matches during a month, it's like holding six raffle tickets when the winner is drawn.
Q: What if YOU win, Michael5000?
A: I won't. Alas, Mrs.5000 and I aren't eligible for fabulous prizes.
Q: But what if I really don't have a preference in a tournament match? Should I just make a random vote in order to get my entry?
A: No. If you make an intelligible comment to the effect that you don't have a preference between the artists in this round, that will count as a entry for fabulous-prize purposes.
Q: So do other comments on the blog count as...
A: No.
Q: So, I voted for four artists in the Play-in Tournament...
A: Whether you vote for four or fewer artists in a Play-in Flight, your ballot counts as a single entry for fabulous-prize purposes.
Q: Can the same person win more than once?
A: If they're lucky.
Q: Surely you don't expect that this will attract new voters, do you?
A: Nah, probably not. It seems like it might be fun, though.
Q: Won't this be a lot of work?
A: Nope. I did a test run. Jenners won the test prize, which is to say nothing.
And Questions About the Prizes
Q: I note that there are a number of formats and editions of The Art Book.
A: The fabulous prize will probably be the medium-format softcover of the original edition. It might be gently used. Specifics may vary according to price and availability, but it is my intention to provide a fairly excellent prize.
Q: I've already got a copy of The Art Book.
A: Perhaps The American Art Book or The 20th Century Art Book would be a good prize for you.
Q: What's a "matching donation"?
A: You can name an organization, and we'll donate $20. But if you donate $30, we'll up our donation to $30.
Q: How will the paperwork on the donations be handled?
A: Honor system.
Q: If you give a museum a one-time $20 donation, won't their marketing expenditures over the years to come result in the donation being a net liability to them?
A: I will send the donation with a very polite letter explaining the situation. They know the drill.
*Q: I notice that there is an asterisk by the cookies...
A: For vaguely legal reasons, the cookie prize is only available to blog regulars, as defined by myself.
Q: What if I win the fabulous prize, but don't see the announcement that I've won?!?
A: Well, there's your incentive to keep up with the IAT!
Q: Well, of course I always keep up! The IAT is my homepage! But let's say that in theory, some one-time voter won and you had no way of contacting them...
A: Their prize would wait for them forever, or until the end of 2013, whichever comes first.
A: Can't happen. Anonymous votes have never been allowed in the Tournament.
