It's a small group of artists who win awards more than once in the Coos Art Museum's annual Maritime Art Exhibit.

In the seven years since Bill Selden of Coos Bay has been entering, only four artists have done it, two of them winning twice with different prizes in separate years. There are four prizes every year, each decided by a different group - best of show picked by the featured artist, people's choice, museum directors and Port of Coos Bay commissioners.

Selden's closest competitor, Harold Johnson, has won three awards in the past seven years, two of them for the same painting.

Selden, meanwhile, has racked up an impressive streak, winning all four prizes and three additional entries of merit. The last jewel in his crown is this year's best of show award, chosen by Don McMichael, for "Life Goes on In Coos Bay."

"I have the whole collection now," said Selden, 65. "It took me several years to get it."

Selden won last year's people's choice award and got the other two on different works in 2008.

McMichael, a North Bend artist, said he chose the piece because he liked the way Selden handled the light.

"He is a master of the light with the way he handles it with a brush," McMichael said, adding that light is something many artists struggle with, himself included.

"He has captured the feeling of it with a stroke of the brush."

Selden described the painting as a compilation of three photographs of the same location where a local wharf burned down, starting with the remains of the structure in the foreground and adding clouds from a different day and putting a boat and barge from another in the distance.

That last part may have been key to his success, he said. Though he liked the scene without the boat, Selden added it because "seascapes don't usually win anything."

While he's glad to be getting more recognition, Selden doesn't consider his best of show to be the best of his winning paintings. That would be last year's people's choice winner and entry of merit, "Moving Water."

McMichael, however, gained additional confidence in his selection when two of the other paintings on his short list ended up winning other awards. Both "Early Ice" by Steven Lush of North Andover, Mass., which won the museum directors award, and "Gig Harbor Historic Dock" by Jerry Mitchell of Wallace, Idaho, the Port of Coos Bay commissioners' choice, were runners-up for best of show, McMichael said.

This year's people's choice award has not yet been decided. Voting remains open at the museum through mid-September.

Chip Dombrowski can be reached at 541-269-1222, ext. 243, or at cdombrowski@theworldlink.com.