This year, 2008, the main event for Art vs. Art was held at The Vogue. (See other article this issue for pictures of the painting event.) The Gazette's own C.W. Pruitt II has participated in Art vs. Art since it started. I drove CW to the painting event at the Harrison Center for the Arts at 1505 North Delaware a couple of weeks before the main event. I decided to join in and paint. The entry fee is only $10 and includes a canvas, brushes, paints and a ticket to the main event. The entire floor of the Harrison Center gym was covered in plastic sheeting. Artists were spaced a few feet apart throughout the area. The restrictions are only four hours to paint and no outside materials allowed. My painting was finished in about an hour and was pretty bad. I'm a newspaper man, not a painter. [Wait, I'm not a newspaper man, I'm an electrical engineer! Anyway, I'm no painter] The top 32 paintings from the online voting were placed on racks at The Vogue for the main event. In-person voting narrowed that field to 16 paintings that would compete head-to-head on stage.

The rounds on stage put two paintings head-to-head with the audience voting by screaming. The loser gets auctioned off. No bidder? Then fate as chosen by a spin of the Wheel Of Death.

The first painting to lose the crowd sound level vote got the unlucky "instant death" from the spin of the wheel. This meant no auction for you! It was sliced by chainsaw and placed in a Hot Box pizza box.