Too Much of a Good Thing

This afternoon, I spent some time talking with Donna, congratulating her for her winning streak (four challenges to date) and teasing her that she should already be relegated to the Hall of Fame (if such exists in Philippine scrapbooking) to give chance to others. She was very adamant in her refusal that she is already of HoF status. She says she is still learning and has a long way to go.

Then the talk turned serious, specially, in relation to the new PS challenge blog. Au raised the question, what if someone has been chosen favorite for three months running, what should we do? This is a matter that should be discussed extensively by the PS team if and when it happens. But personally, here's what I think.

We all join challenges or competitions to "win" - some may have an eye on the prize, for some the prize is the process, some think the finished LO is the reward, and still for others, peer recognition is more than enough. But let's all agree we invest our time, money, hearts and efforts in our LOs.

I do not believe that a scrapper should be banned from joining competitions or even challenges because she is a good scrapper. That defeats the purposes of issuing challenges - to find the best LO and of joining challenges - to better ourselves. To paraphrase that popular commercial, don't hate me because I make beautiful LOs.

If we discriminate against a scrapper for having won several times previously, we are in effect saying that making a winning LO is not a good thing. Instead of giving positive reinforcement we would be discouraging scrappers from doing the best they can everytime.

The competition should be about the layout, not the scrapper. The work should speak for itself. All things being equal, if an LO stands out from the rest, then it should be judged the best, regardless of who the scrapper is. Those whose LOs do not make it, should take it as a challenge to do better next time. For again, isn't that the purpose? Open competitions keep previous winners on their toes, and it encourages non-winners to continue forging on.

Art has a fickle muse. One day (or even several months) you may be producing the best works of your life, the next, someone else may be producing works better than yours.

So Donna, I take my HoF remark back. But if by some weird stroke of good luck I win second place in a competition and you place first, I would no doubt demand that you be considered a Hall of Famer already. Hey, move back and make room for me, okay?