Crystal Wise
I have to admit that I put too much damn stock in awards. You know, honors, praise, “good job, fellas” in the form of trophies, plaques, and statuettes. I honest to goodness wish I was one of those easygoing cats who could say, in my best Robert Mitchum impression of complete aloofness, “I don’t give a rat’s ***.”
But truth is, I do.
I’m one of those people who still religiously tunes into the Academy Awards (yeah, one of its 18 Cowtown viewers) and enjoys watching the elation of the winners and their ensuing anxiety when being played off stage by the orchestra. I recall Kenneth Branagh’s win as much as I recall Will Smith’s slap. If I were in the film industry — an ambition that never quite materialized — I’d dream of winning an Oscar.
But I’m in the magazine industry. The city magazine industry. And, in this industry, we have our own Oscars, if you want to call it that. It’s the City and Regional Magazine Association Awards. CRMA Awards, for short.
While I enjoy and am incredibly proud of the content our creative and editorial team produces on a monthly basis, in CRMA, we’re a modestly sized fish (that’s as self-deprecating as I assume my publisher would want me to get) in a big pond. And this big pond is full of blue whales and man-eating kraken.
Every year since my employment, we’ve thrown our name into the hat for a few awards, and my natural optimism gets my hopes up that we’ll make the elusive list of finalists. Of course, it’s only resulted in disappointment.
This year, after submitting our nominations, I felt different. I felt even more confident than before. More specifically, I felt more confident than before because of a particular submission that, even with my biases set aside, I thought was brilliant.
Our photographer, Crystal Wise, had labored for many months over a concept about Western artists. It was to be a photography-heavy piece highlighting cowboy and cowgirl creators in different disciplines. The aha moment came when artist Jacob Lovett, who’s featured in the piece, told Crystal it reminded him of the nine muses of Greek mythology. That was it. That was the angle we needed: The 9 Muses of Western Art.
Crystal would go on to deliver an extraordinary piece with nine conceptual photographs that defied all expectations. The feature would appear in our September 2023 issue, and, rightfully so, it was announced on this, our press week, that Crystal became a CRMA Award finalist for her work.
Again, I know I put too much damn stock in this stuff, but I don’t care. To see Crystal’s name on that list of finalists makes any misguided importance completely worth it.
Editor's Note: This excerpt originally ran as the Editor's Letter in the 2024 April issue of Fort Worth Magazine.
