When local artist Lisa Budd found out she had made the American Watercolor Society’s Signature Artist status, she screamed with joy, but no one was home to hear her. “I thought about going out and telling the neighbors but then realized they probably wouldn’t understand the significance,” she said.

It was her third try to become a AWS signature member, which to watercolorists is the pinnacle of success. To have the right to add AWS after her signature on her watercolors, she had to be juried or accepted into three AWS exhibits.