FIRST PLACE:
Here Comes the Sun by Lisabeth Curnow
What’s most evident with an initial glance at this painting is that the artist has command and control of the medium, carefully layering the colors to create the textural feel of nature in the waterfowl feathers. The swirl of the water is depicted in a magical array of colors that fade to the crisp black of the background and sky. The subtlety of the plants in the background and more boldly in the left, provide balance to the primary subject focus. The subject of ducks, geese, and other waterfowl is often predictable as a painting. In this painting, however, the coloring, technical control, balance, and composition make it stand out as an obvious award winner.

SECOND PLACE:
A Grandmother’s Love by Stephanie Gregg
In this mixed media collage on an edge-wrapped canvas, the artist has successfully conveyed a story portrayed with elegance and color. As with a Klimt, the decorative elements add a calligraphic contrast to the more saturated colors and painted forms that add brilliance to the collage. The imagery of a young woman and still-young-looking grandmother is compelling in communicating a story of love using a collage technique that successfully conveys the story. Emotive, colorful, thoughtfully created with varying techniques and styles, the artwork nicely and successfully achieves the artist’s objectives.

THIRD PLACE:
Sweet Dreams Machine by Steph Joy Hogan
This artwork shows that small can be beautiful and award winning! This 8”-square acrylic and ink with paper collage and painting appears to be inspired from an imagined (dream-like) fantasy of industry and mechanized playfulness. It is carefully drawn using colors and forms that evoke imagination and dreams. The mixed-media is very nicely framed in a simple but appropriate white floater frame of proper width and spacing. Imagination defines the dream-like imagery and story. Truly unique!

AWARDS OF EXCELLENCE (in alphabetical order by artist name)
Afterglow by Jane Cloutier
The monoprint presents a farmland landscape in an untraditional vertical format – successfully. The rainbow blended colors with aquatint-like granular texture transitions from bright fields and horizon to night darkness toward the top of the print. Nice, intimate monoprint. Unfortunately the mat corners are not of professional quality and the mat (which would look better if it matched the paper color) unfortunately covers the lower portion of the edition number, title, and signature. When I viewed it, a piece of paper (likely from when the tag was temporarily stuck under the frame edge) was distractingly stuck between the glass and inner edge of the metal frame.

Seasons by John Diephouse
This is an excellent example of printed artwork that can be created without printmaking tools or brushes. This digital collage shows changing seasons subtly with round gears imagined to be rotating in shifting colors and tree trunk-like forms. The organic transition of colors and forms is in multiple layers. The double matting is very nicely done and the anodized black metal frame works well with the print.

Burano by Nancy Gray
The pastel drawing is intentionally not precise but more of a color study, devoid of people (which would seemingly be improbable on a sunny day on the Italian island). The pastel appears as a recollection of a place traveled and remembered. It stands out in this exhibition for the medium and the colors which are intended to replicate the actual colors of the facades that appear on the island of Burano. The double matting is excellent in quality, color and width and it is well framed. The space between the two mats provides depth to the depicted scene and allows a gap where pastel “dust” could fall if it occurs over time. An option would be to reverse bevel the mat edges so if pastel color falls, it won’t show on the bevel edge due to it being reversed to the back side of the mat rather than the front of the mat as is normal.

CERTIFICATES OF MERIT (in alphabetical order by artist name)

Midnight Blue by Christine Hesch
The fiber wall hanging uses natural wood forms and a mix of various fibers, textures, and jewelry to bring together an amalgam of elements in a vertical wall hanging that is dimensionally attractive, though reminiscent of earlier decades. The contrasting weft thread to the woven blues reminds the viewer that every aspect of the wall hanging is unique and liked designed as it was created, and as with many paintings, challenging the artist to determine when it is finally “done”. This is the only fiber/tapestry in the show.

Winter Trees by Nanette Mathe
What’s attractive about this small mixed media artwork is that on top of the painting a landscape of trees defined by threads and irregular tiny white beads sewn onto the canvas defined by dark colors all resting on a base of wispy white fibers conveying snow in the cold winter scene. The artwork deserves to be viewed closely as it nicely combines various media to define the imagery and mood realized by viewing it. Another example of small and effective.

Sustain by Bobbie Margolis
This three-dimensional painting with layered, formed, painted, and tulle-wrapped components depicts a plant and branches with dimensional flower blossoms, one with a bee collecting nectar from the center of the flower. The scene depicted could be created in a range of traditional art media, but the artist chose to use a medley of various media to construct the scene in a fully unique style. The process is additive and playful and the result is joyful and unique.