"He got a prize?!!"

The look of disbelief on the woman's face was wonderful. 
We were passing back the Show's competition items yesterday. This particular woman had come in to pick up the "Special Needs" classes - for the intellectually disabled and the vision impaired. There had been a very big box of items from an organisation for the intellectually disabled - she runs an art group there. Most of the work was the sort of thing I have grown to expect - artistic in a childish and often garish sort of way. It often isn't well executed but you can almost feel the pleasure people had in creating it.
And there were a couple of pieces of "weaving" in among it. One piece had gone into the special needs category and the other had gone into the Open category. I had talked to the judge after she had finished. She was hanging the piece  in the display cabinet.
    "I don't know. There's something about this I like. The technique isn't wonderful and the materials aren't that good but it has life to it. I gave it a third."
As the judging was finished and I knew where it had come from I told her. She stood still for a moment looking at it again and then nodded.
    "Yes, that's it."
The group from the institution was there during the Show. They went looking for their pieces. Prizes didn't mean much to them. They simply wanted to see their pieces displayed in the cabinets. 
    "We couldn't find his piece anywhere."
I showed her where it had been prominently displayed, along with all the other Open pieces. It was clear she was shocked.
    "He will be thrilled," she told those of us standing there.
I hope he is. I don't know him but there was a definitely some sunshine in that piece.
There were people who were upset that their work had not won something. There were people who wanted to argue. There were people who wanted to ask for feedback - given where we can. And as I packed up the last of the knitting and crochet toys I glanced again at the next cabinet where the handspinning and weaving had been displayed and I thought of the man I don't know and will almost certainly never meet. I imagined him working slowly and carefully to get it "right" in the way he sees the world.
And yes... there was something about that piece of work. It had that indefinable quality that made it "art" as well as craft.
    "I just put it in there because he had two pieces I thought were really good and I couldn't choose," she told me.