Forever Miss Butler County 2014

Yesterday I passed on my title of Miss Butler County to the next deserving young woman, Kiah Duggins. And the new Miss Augusta is Hannah Wagner. It was a beautifully put on pageant and I basically just got to sit back and relax and provide a little filler here and there. 

I wanted to put up my "farewell speech" and accompanying slideshow as well as an "extended version" in type below. It's not your normal farewell speech, but I figured if people had to sit there and listen to me, I wanted to say something important in addition to summarizing my year. 

And the extended version (because I wrote too much and we had to cut it down for the recorded version):

This year has been quite a journey…

And it all started on this very stage.

Since being crowned Miss Butler County, I’ve gotten to be a part of some really cool things and work with some incredible people.

The first order of duty was to be in the Augusta Christmas parade… which was freezing. But I got to meet santa, so it was worth it.

I helped out with a radiothon for CMN that Mix 93.3 ran.

I met the mayor of Kansas City at a Dancing with the KC Stars benefit gala with Abigail Lopez.

I raised money for CMN on National Pancake Day with Mai-Thy Ta at the IHOP in Lawrence.

A group of Miss Kansas contestants and I visited the children’s wing in the Via Christi hospital in Wichita. (Shaelynn and I pretended to duke it out on a sweet video game setup they had there)

I was a model in the Models for Miracles Wichita show.

The Miss Unstoppable pageant had it’s debut competition that I got to be a part of! This was actually one of my favorite events this year. Seriously beautiful and amazing women that are so much more than most people give them credit for.

I spoke to the Lawrence boys and girls club about my speed painting and my platform, more than what you see by way of my friend, Holly, inviting me to join them for class this summer.

I completed the final task of the duke of Edinburgh award with Meagan Johnson and her father, which was surprisingly super fun! I’m notttt and outdoors person, for anyone who doesn’t know that about me.

I also got to meet MISS AMERICA.

Moving on to Miss Kansas - - in June I gave my all in Pratt at the Miss Kansas competition.

I rocked it in the fitness category. I did Speed painting. I wore the gown of my dreams.

And I got top ten.

In addition to that, I was officially awarded the duke of Edinburgh award alongside my friend, Meagan Johnson and my sister queen, Alyssa Marsh. I was also the recipient of the Miracle Maker award for raising the most money for CMN.

I want to thank the people who supported me this year in so many ways – my friends, my family, and my directors.

So Miss Kansas was successful, my year was successful, but I want to speak a little bit more about a bigger picture thing that I’ve been dealing a lot with this year, not only because it’s my platform, but because it’s something I consistently struggle with and I think is a point of conflict for women in the pageant community – being authentically who you are and revealing that pageant girls are more than what you see.

Theresa Vail is a good friend of mine who continues to inspire women daily to embrace who they are even if it defies stereotypes.

I am by no means perfect. But I strive to better myself by surrounding myself with happy, helpful, successful people that I like to call my friends.

And besides,

Real…

Like…

Really good French fries.

And really awesome pin-up curls late one night after long rehearsals at miss k

And like real funny faces with your sunflower princess and her sister backstage.

The privilege of a life time is being who you are.  Asher Roth said “Do your thing. Do it unapologetically. Don’t be discouraged by criticism. You probably already know what they're going to say. Pay no mind to the fear of failure. It's far more valuable than success. Take ownership, take chances, and have fun. And no matter what, don’t ever stop doing your thing.”

I struggled even in this new pageant season in being authentic to myself and it felt awful.

I want to be honest with you all. I want to be myself  and share my stories both the triumphant and the difficult ones and be proud of who I am.

My car is covered in bumper stickers.

I have tattoos, one of which being representative of the friendship I have with my brother. (If you’re squeamish, cover your eyes. Fair warning)

I like to do zombie makeup.

I am an artist.

My point is that the biggest challenge of life is to be yourself in a world that is trying to make you like everyone else.

Years ago I was a young girl with a world full of dreams. I had no fears of society’s pressures to conform to this or that. I had no apprehension to hide anything that made me distinct amongst the crowds.

Now as a young woman striving to accomplish those dreams, I crave that courage that I once held so freely. I invite you to join me in showcasing your best self; Your authentic self. 

I am so thankful for the opportunities I had this year, the team I worked with, and the strides I made to better myself and better the world I live in.

I am and will always be Miss Butler County 2014, but I am so…so much more than that.

Scare the World

Scare the world. 

Be exactly who you say you are and tell the truth.

Yesterday I competed in my first local of the season and I placed first runner up. That's not a bad placement by any means, but if that's true, why did I still feel so defeated afterwards?

I had a great interview, I was told that my onstage portions were on point, I felt pretty decent about the performance I'd given for my talent... but I still don't really feel good about the whole thing. Why?

I'm toiling with these feelings and questions today because it confuses me.

For talent, I chose to sing instead of speed paint - this was mostly because I was planning on competing a month from now, and when I decided to sign up for the September pageant, that cut off a month of painting preparation (that's a good chunk when it comes to creating a speed-painting, for me at least).

I wonder, though, if somewhere in me, I felt that I was not being as authentic to my identity. Now that I know what it feels like to have adrenaline running through my fingers and out the bristles of a brush while painting onstage, does the racing of my heart before I go on to sing not hold up? In my interview, one of the judges took the time to research me and saw that I had painted at the state pageant and watched a video of it. She pointedly asked me why I was not painting at this pageant and I explained to her that I didn't feel I had the time to prepare an adequate image for them, which was true. But I guess I could have made time.

Last Sunday, much of the pageant community witnessed Miss New York and now Miss America, Kira Kazantsev, drum on a red cup and sing while seated and barefoot onstage. To me, that was a spark of reassurance from her (as I believe she intended it to be), saying that it's okay to have the unusual talent act and that you can be successful with it.

I will be honest with you, after states this past June (which I can't really believe was less than 6 months ago), I was seriously questioning if I would ever paint onstage again. I wondered if it was worth it and if it was a talent that read well over the footlights in the understanding of the audience and especially the judges. There were people close to me who backed me up and supported me and offered advice. There were people who were also close to me who questioned if it was competitive enough and if I was capable of pulling it off and if it was a "Miss America" talent.

I chose to paint because one of my passions lies in the fine arts. I also painted because I know that is a talent that I can take to the Miss America stage, but not only that - also into Children's Miracle Network Hospitals and draw and paint with children. Art therapy is a growing interest and is something that I can personally bring into hospitals to interact positively with children.

After the pageant yesterday, many familiar patrons and friends asked, "Why didn't you paint??" This was spoken in a tone that suggested that they were eager to see what I would do next on a spinning canvas and were kind of bummed that I didn't tote the easel on stage that afternoon. Those comments, as well as the judge's comment in my interview, suggested to me that maybe speed painting is a talent that can be translated well for a pageant and instilled a new energy in me to pick my brushes back up and start working on a new 90-second-piece.


Aside from the painting, another thing I have been circling around in my mind is the issue of ink.

I did cover up one of my tattoos - my most recent one, and the one that means the most to me - my ampersand that I got with my brother. I did this because even after my good friend and previous Miss Kansas, Theresa Vail, showed her tattoos on the Miss America stage, tattoos are still considered taboo on a pageant stage. I've always said, "Why would I cover up something that I chose to put permanently on my body?" Well, before now, I haven't had any tattoos that are as big and bold as the one on the back of my arm. I am told my ampersand tattoo is distracting and that I should cover it up because it's hard to picture me onstage with a giant & on my arm when I'm in an evening gown, among other things.



And I get it.

It's not "normal".

But on the red carpet, celebrities flaunt their tattoos in stunning evening gowns and nobody has any issues with it. And Theresa placed high at Miss America her year despite the Serenity Prayer that went down her side. Why is it, then, that I still feel an amount of shame when I want to display a tattoo that I chose to get permanently on my body? Especially one that represents the strongest bond that I will ever have with a person - that with my brother.

Ha - and it took so much work to cover it up, too! I'm so freakin' pale that I couldn't find any coverup that was light enough for my skin tone. It took layers and layers of the lightest coverup I had plus a WHITE powder/highlighter to mask the ink on my arm.

In my interview, they also asked me if we, as humans, are justified in judging someone by the way they dressed - I talked about how it is a mark of an educated person to dress for the job that they want. I would not go into an interview for the job of Miss America in my painting smock and sweatpants because that doesn't really make sense, does it? Some might add to that, in light of tattoos, saying that the job of Miss America is not filled by a woman with ink. But I would like to think that it's not defined by solely ink-free skin either.


I don't know my reasoning for writing this blog except to maybe just get my thoughts out there... Maybe I just needed to "talk through it" with...uh... the void that is the internet.

As of this moment, at the end of "the day after", I want to say that I will be authentic to myself. I want to paint; I want to proudly bear my tattoos; I want to be exactly who I am and own it. And honestly, sometimes that's easier said than done.

I hope that if I choose to show my tattoos - the ones I have now and/or ones I choose to get in the future - that I will have the support of people I love. I hope that if I choose to paint, it will resonate with someone as Kira's talent resonated with me.

So... stay tuned to see what conclusion this ginger comes to. I'm not sure when or where I will compete next, but unless you live under a rock, rest be assured that social media will notify you when I get my sparkly heels and my paintbrushes back out to rock a stage near you.

- Annika Wooton

Summer: Class Axe

Hi all!

It's been a good while since I've written here-- the last post I wrote was about my experience and preparation speed painting for the Miss Kansas competition.

After Miss K came to a close, I drove to Virginia to attend my brother's high school graduation. I ended up staying there most of the summer working various jobs - I helped teach a film camp, worked tech for some rental shows in a theater, designed and painted sets for a youth theater camp, stamped envelopes and filed papers - the works.

Aside from that, I also competed in a 48 hour film project! This was really cool. This is actually my fourth year competing with Class Axe for the 48hfp. I was originally invited to be part of this team in 2011, by a group of students from my high school led by our teacher, Jon Shelley. I was brought on as a makeup artist that year (doing some nasty gashes and gorish wounds), but the following year stepped up to be the director and organizer of the team.

If you aren't familiar with this competition, here's about how it goes:

Friday evening, representatives from all the teams convene at a location at which we pull a genre from a hat (this year our's was "drama"). Then once every team has their genre, we are all given the same three required prompts: actor, line, and prop.  This year it was Pete or Peggy Wiltz, an architect, "You don't have a clue, do you?", and flowers. Once those prompts have been given, it's time to make a film! From that moment, the teams have 48 hours to write, shoot, and edit a film under 7 minutes long.

The only things we are allowed to prepare ahead of time are potential actors and locations, our team, and our equipment.

Our team is generally known for turning whatever genre we get into some sort of horror film or last year we had sci-fi and that was close enough. This year, we really wanted to do something different from what we had created in the past. I believe we were successful, though we are all perfectionists and know exactly what we could have done better. Our actors were wonderful and took direction really well and we added a puppy in one scene for emotional relief.

All-in-all, it's an incredibly stressful, but rewarding weekend. We had three teams that had spawned from my high school - two alumni teams and one student team - all operating out of the theater building; sleeping in the isles, editing in the computer lab, brainstorming in various art rooms.

Over the years, I've learned a lot from my various roles. I've had the opportunity to expand my knowledge and capabilities (while still limited) in the world of film as well as be a mentor for student teams and camps that I've been invited to be a part of since being a part of Class Axe.

These weekends rank among the most stressful work environments I've been in depending on the people that made up the team from year to year. I am much better at managing my time when I have to get a TON done in oh...48 hours, for instance. I know my limits in terms of working on sleep deprivation, lack of food, and testy teammates (or testy me). And I know how to make a pretty decent short film in a short amount of time!

This year my team was incredible. We had a really good collaborative and creative flow. We communicated especially when we needed some space. We could always improve in time management... but we came out at the end with a product I know we are all proud of. Who knows what we could accomplish with real planning and extended time.

On our website, you can see behind the scenes photos, bios of our team, and links to our previous films: http://annika-wooton.wix.com/classaxe

And here is a link to this year's film (because I don't think it's actually on the website yet, my bad): http://youtu.be/lBRCVwHqtZ8?list=PLK1HvIA4VBIOmLQyKMksqTLpUMF1T1xPr

Moral of the story is: I can make a painting in 90 seconds and a film in 48 hours. BOOM. Are you impressed yet? :P

- Annika Wooton

Miss Butler County

The Woman Behind the Painting

Many people are curious as to what "speed painting" is, how I did it and why I did it. So I decided I would write a (rather lengthy) blog post to answer your questions.

One of my judges at the pageant asked me what speed painting is. I started to explain how I got into it and the process of practicing for it when she stopped me and said, "No, I mean what is it? Like, what are you doing?"

I realize that maybe the term, "speed painting," is not a clear definition of the talent that I performed on Thursday and Saturday of the Miss Kansas pageant week. Google's definition is as follows: 

Speed painting: n. an artistic technique where the artist has a limited time to finish the work. The time can vary, usually a duration is set from several minutes to a few hours.

More specific to my situation, my speed painting duration was a mere 90 seconds onstage in front of at least 2,000 people in a live audience as well as a webcast audience. I painted on an easel that was custom designed and engineered by my father to be able to spin the canvas as well as be taken apart and transported by my 2002 Honda Civic. 

So let's start from the beginning. Where did this idea even come from? 

My senior year of high school, the men who ran the theater came to me with an idea: "What if you painted live onstage with the jazz band? Speed painting, essentially." What if? I decided to go for it. I didn't practice at all (even though I was provided with the music was supposed to at least test it out and see if it was possible), I had all my paints set up, three canvases ready to go, and a "wing it" attitude. A camera was set up peering under my arm so that my work could be projected on screens above the stage, and I began painting. Two of the works were successfully completed in one song each. The third is what really fueled the continuation of this kind of performance for me. The third painting was completed in two songs and was painted upside-down. It was a man playing the piano and when I turned it right-side-up, the audience gasped and murmured - they were in awe. The satisfaction and thrill that that gave me sat in the back of my mind for two years. 

Now, I am studying art education at the University of Kansas. I have always yearned for a way to express my visual talents onstage in a pageant. I have tried to execute this by designing my wardrobe or one time I tried to show an animation I had created, but it was never truly explicative of what I could do in the field of fine arts.

This past October, I competed for the title of Miss Butler County. I had not thought this through enough to pull it out of my back pocket at the local competition so I sang again, but as soon as I won, I called up my director on the phone and I said, "Larry, you're going to think I'm crazy, but this is what I want to do." And proceeded to explain my idea to bring speed painting to the Miss Kansas stage. He said if I believed I could do it, he would be behind me 100% and Juven followed suit - both have been entirely supportive this whole year. 

So how does one go about preparing to speed-paint? I hardly knew where to begin. But to do anything properly, you must begin at the beginning and for me, that was securing an image. I wanted to do something that was recognizable, relatable to the pageant audience, and enticing for me to paint and practice for oh... seven months. I settled on the face of the one and only - Theresa Vail - our current Miss Kansas and national superstar. I asked her if I could use her face as my muse and she was a little surprised that I wanted to paint her but said absolutely and encouraged me to try this diverse talent.

Now I had the image, what was I supposed to do with it? There was no way I could do a full-color portrait in 90 seconds, though that's entirely what I thought I could do in my mind (I quickly learned otherwise). I literally found the canvas I have been using in a dumpster near campus. Yes, Theresa, I have been painting and repainting your face on a dumpster-canvas :P Hey, it was financially friendly and totally worked!

I sketched her face so much. It's probably creepy how many times I drew her face over and over again. Or just her eyes, or just her nose (noses are stupid). Trying to figure out how I could represent this portrait in paint in 90 seconds. (I am being vulnerable and showing you all the failed times I drew Theresa Vail... some of them are NOT pretty. But for every time it didn't look like her, I had found another way not to draw her face - bringing me closer to ways on how to get it right.)

After sketches, I did a full color portrait, just to see what it would potentially look like...and I knew again that I couldn't do full color... but how I wanted to paint in color... It took so much simplifying. 

Side note - A lot of these images I am posting are upside-down because that is how I practiced and painted. My final performance would be creating the image upside-down, not to mention, it helps an artist's brain see the shapes and elements of the face better... I'll explain that in another post, maybe.

Another choice that I continued to mess with, was the scale of the portrait. As I kept simplifying, I decided the recognizable features were in her face and as I cut out all colors except skin tone and black, representing the blonde hair with yellow was also removed. For the record, I entirely wish I had kept the yellow... boo...

The four portraits above were not, I repeat, were NOT painted in 90 seconds. I was just trying to find her likeness and how I wanted the painting to look in the end, then I could break it down. Photoshop was a huge help. I played with the portrait until I had it down to minimal tones that still represented Theresa's features and a composition that I liked. This is when the "speed" part came in. 

It was not enough to practice in a sketchbook because this performance was going to take full body movement. Equivalent to singers humming their songs or dancers marking out spacing on the stage and not going full out. 

So before I got to the paint part, I did large scale charcoal sketches - trying to get the hang of the lines and spacing... Forgive these sketches... They are wretched. I just couldn't get it to really look like her, and I was getting progressively discouraged. So I decided I just needed to go for it with the paint. My brother and my boyfriend at the time graciously helped me record and produce a cover of "Brave," by Sara Bareilles and that was the soundtrack to my life for a good chunk of time. 

So much of this talent was mental. I would listen to my song on repeat walking down campus, just visualizing the marks I needed to make, mapping out what parts needed to be finished by which part of the song... So even though sketches of Theresa's defining eyebrows continued to fill the sides of my notebooks in class and minimal markings of noses are what I chose to populate my scrap paper, it was time to move forward. 

Now, I live in an apartment with three other women and a pitbull, so personal space is limited, especially that to leave out wet paint and a canvas. So if I wasn't able to drive the 15 minutes to campus and haul my things up to the studio, my make-shift studio was my bathroom. THAT was fun ;) You can see I literally had the canvas propped up on a bucket on top of my desk chair! But it worked!

Each time I painted, I felt more and more successful and more and more comfortable. But still not quite there. I conferenced with so many people who are credited with my success - my parents, my best friend/fellow artist/roommate, my mentors from high school who initially sparked the speed painting interest, my artist-grandmother, my college professors, and my brutally honest brother.

I know exactly how much space is between each feature - three spread fingers between the eyebrows, wrist to elbow from the corner of the mouth to the outer right eye, octave stretch from the top of the forehead to the eyebrow. But it wouldn't make sense for me to make those measurements onstage and waste seconds. So I had markings on my canvas to make up for those necessary measurements in order to get it as close to perfect as I could. I was capable of making the portrait without those, but not in the time limit, it just wasn't possible. Moving forward now that I could relatively capture her likeness, was the question of if I should have a third tone to add depth and value. I ended on yes, I should. But do you know when that decision was made? Oh, you know, the Wednesday before I left on Saturday for the competition. I think I practiced maybe 4-6 times total with the half-tone color added in. How's that for giving a person anxiety?

Now let's take it to the next step. The easel. My dad volunteered to engineer and construct me a custom spinning easel (after researching and finding out that "real" spinning easels cost an arm and a leg).  Not only did it spin my canvas, it kept it stable during the actual painting AND was able to be taken apart, shipped to Kansas (from Virginia), and put back together fairly easily! Just incredible. So it arrived on my doorstep Tuesday before I left on Saturday... giving me four days tops to assemble the easel, make sure it works, and practice with it before leaving for the actual competition o.O

Oy vey. I put it together and was so excited and what do you know! The canvas hit the base of the easel on the final corner of the spin... cue dramatic music. 

After several phone calls with dad, the first option was to saw down the PVC pipes that made up the corner legs of the structure. So I went out and bought a hack saw at Walmart, positioned myself strangely but effectively to saw off PVC pipe on my kitchen table (acquiring strange looks from my roommates and their guests), and cut off an inch of each legs. Problem solved? NOPE. Because there were three other pieces of wood screwed in to the previous height... bullocks. What next? 

Well it was either take the height of the base down (tried that) or increase the height of the pole holding the canvas. So I put a book under the pole, raising it an inch or so. Success. But of course, I can't just shove a book under that pole onstage, so another trip to Home Depot was made to secure a metal bit that I can't remember the name of anymore and metal epoxy. It was Wednesday at this point, two more days before I had to take it all apart and leave. While the epoxy dried on the pole, I got some black fabric and velcro and fashioned a "table skirt" of sorts to hide the engineering masterpiece/eyesore as well as a long piece on the front to function as a drop cloth under the paint-zone. 

Finally it worked.

And then it was time to take it apart and wedge it into my little car along with everything else.

So now I'm traveling to Pratt, KS and the last time I did the painting full speed, with my extra half-tone color, with the new easel, in heels, I was not pleased with the result. (To the right is the second to last time I did the painting before leaving for Pratt... looks nothing like Theresa.) My talent night was Thursday, so I got to practice Thursday morning twice, but I was not remotely confident that I was going to be able to pull it off, especially after five days void of painting Theresa's face. Not to mention, I was afraid that I would have to put the easel in the unknowing (but capable) hands of one of the backstage guys to assemble. There were step by step instructions... and labeled bags with the nuts and bolts in them... but it was complicated and I knew I could do it quickly and correctly and it would just put me at ease knowing it was perfect. So I weaseled my way into putting it together in spare bits of time despite wishes of our chaperones that I just let someone else do it. 

Then came Thursday - practice time. This was the first time I'd even worn my outfit. The music started. My brushes started whirring around the freshly stretched canvas. I was hitting my marks in the music. I had time to whip around and sing at the audience to add that little performance bit. And I had time. At the end, I had extra time! That never happened in practice! It had to have been adrenaline... was it luck or skill? I had one more time to run through it. And again, I had extra time at the end. Here is when I started wishing I had kept the yellow color in for her hair, but I had no way of knowing I would turn into a fast-forwarded version of myself once I hit the stage. But I was at peace. 

And then it was time for competition. I did not have terrified anxiety, but rather a hushed buzz of anticipation. I was so ready to show the judges and the audience a new and fresh talent on the Miss Kansas stage. 

I could not be more thrilled with the result. I did not win preliminary talent, but I know it was a crowd favorite and is something I will continue to compete with. My platform is called, "More Than What You See" and while it brings to light the conversation of the Beauty Myth that is present in our culture, more than that, I talk about the talents and characteristics that make people unique and successful. My painting was more than what you see because I fooled the viewers in starting upside-down. I am more than what you see because who would expect a pageant girl to make a massive portrait in 90 seconds? 

This whole process is more than what you see because there was so much that went in to it for months and months before hand - mental preparation, sketches, paintings, building the easel, figuring out what sucked and what didn't. This is not just me, this is a culmination of many people who encouraged me and helped me brainstorm every detail down to the type of brush, the shade of paint, and the size of the earrings. 

A huge thank you goes out to those who contributed to my success, sparked a flame under my butt to get me going, and encouraged this unique talent to grace the Miss Kansas stage in the hands of a firey ginger. Another gracious thank you goes to the viewers and audience members who accepted this as talent and reached out to me afterwards offering words of affirmation and are truly one of the reasons that I will continue to compete as a speed painter. 

It took a hot second of bravery to have the guts to put this together and pull this off and not give up. The music that followed my brush strokes told me, "I wanna see you be brave." And brave, I was. I am proud of my performance and competition as Miss Butler County 2014. I am honored to represent Butler County as a Top Ten Finalist. And I will be back next year, better than ever.

- Annika Wooton

Miss Butler County 2014