Faux pas or blunder?

Seems that someone at the Santa Cruz Art League wasn't paying attention to the ribbon labels carefully. As it turns out, my beloved Shoreline painting was not, in fact, an honoree of honorable mention status but a First Prize winner in the oil painting category.

It's wonderful to know, yes. A check arrived with congratulations last week, very nice. However, I am still somewhat miffed. I'll tell you why. The entire show the painting, First Prize, hung with an honorable mention ribbon attached to it. Also, I found out about the prize, by mail, 3 weeks after the show closed. Not even when the paintings were picked up was there any indication of the award.

I find it really odd behavior for an 80th annual statewide show to have such disorganized operations. For someone who worked in retail and has read up on consumer psychology, it would have been really great to have had that first place ribbon on my painting. Maybe I'm just being persnickety. Is it wrong to want the recognition?

So here it is again, drum roll please, the first place oil painting, Winter Shoreline, 80th Annual Juried Landscape Competition, Santa Cruz, California June 2010.