Thursday, November 15, 2007
Tech gallery displays local art
The 36-piece collection includes photographs, sculptures, oil paintings and mixed-media pieces.
New River Art 2007 award winners
- Best in Show: Nancy Stark
- Nadine Allen Memorial Award: Jane Frank
- Photography Award: Pete Hellmann
- Awards of Distinction: David Eakin, Frieda Post, Claire Sieffert, Leslye Bloom, Jennifer Spoon and John Shruptrine
- Merit Awards: Suzun Hughes, Molly Jones, Patricia Bevan and Susan Bidwell
Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times
Photographer Eugene Gourley is one of the exhibiting artists in the New River Art 2007 exhibit. Gourley’s featured photograph in the show is called “Saguaro Sentinels” and was made in Arizona.
Exhibit artists
- Patricia Bevan of Blacksburg, “Path to Shaker Village” (pastel)
- Susan Bidwell of Roanoke, “Places to Go” (photo)
- Martha Biggar of Draper, “Mask” (fine silver)
- Leslye Bloom of Blacksburg, “Out of the Darkness” (computage, digital-acrylic)
- Jack Burn of Ripplemead, “Chesapeake Bay Crab House” (photo)
- Marie Collier of Blacksburg, “Cleopatra” (acrylic)
- Carolyn Deck of Buchanan, “Out of the Center” (acrylic)
- Vera Dickerson of Troutville, “Uncle Bepe Speaks” (watermedia)
- David Eakin of Lynchburg, “Approaching Storm” (oil)
- Jane Frank of Roanoke, “Madonna of the Desert” (mixed media)
- Lora Leigh Giessler of Floyd, “Convergence” (pastel)
- Eugene Gourley of Christiansburg, “Saguaro Sentinels” (photo)
- Julie Hamilton of Salem, “Fertile” (oil)
- David Hedges of Blacksburg, “Downtown Blacksburg” (photography)
- Pete Hellmann of Schuyler, “Works’ All Done” (digital photography)
- Katherine Hughes of Lynchburg, “A Family Quilt: Star” (mixed media)
- Suzun Hughes of Roanoke, “Metal Totem II Blue” (photo-based digital construction)
- Christopher Jones of Roanoke, “Between Innings” (oil)
- Molly Jones of Pilot, “Changing Directions” (ceramic, woodfired)
- Brett Lague of Roanoke, “Breathing Fire” (ink and watercolor)
- Barbara Lashley of Vinton, “Some Like it Cool!” (recycled prints, drawings and paintings)
- Darcy Meeker of Blacksburg, “Chrysalis” (Italian white alabaster)
- Sally Mook of Blacksburg, “Ergo, Ergo” (acrylic)
- Nancy Norton of Blacksburg, “Grandpere Denielle” (stained glass)
- Patricia Placona of Roanoke, “Morning” (oil)
- Frieda Post of Blacksburg, “The Blue Coat” (acrylic)
- Ann Shawhan of Blacksburg, “Ascension” (photo)
- John Shuptrine of Lynchburg, “Wall of Zion” (photo)
- Clare Sieffert of Roanoke, “Tom’s Portrait” (ceramic)
- Olivia Smith of Boones Mill, “Butterfly Unleashed” (acrylic)
- Jennifer Spoon of Riner, “The Angel of Translation” (paper and acrylic collage on canvas)
- Nancy Stark of Roanoke, “Steel Shadows — End to End” (watermedia)
- Anne Thwaites of Kingsport, Tenn., “Outlook” (acrylic)
- Carter Turner of Salem, “Naked Brown” (photo)
- Linda White of Troutville, “VIA” (sepia-toned digital photo)
- Carol Wolfe of Blacksburg, “Reeds and Reflections” (photo)
BLACKSBURG -- For Ann Shawhan, it was a "happy accident" that her photo of her 14-year-old daughter in a swimming pool was selected for the New River Art 2007 juried exhibit.
The 36-piece collection is on display in Virginia Tech's Perspective Gallery through Dec. 7.
Shawhan usually paints her photographs using the picture to remember where the light fell on an image.
Last fall, she used a plastic underwater camera to photograph her daughter swimming in a relative's dark, leaf-cluttered pool.
"I wanted to take pictures of people underwater to get that sense of weightlessness" to use in a painting, Shawhan said.
As it turned out, her husband and sculptor Larry Bechtel thought the photo could stand alone and submitted it to the juried show.
More than 276 paintings, sculptures, photographs, stained glass and mixed-media pieces arrived in time for the September deadline for entries, said Leslye Bloom, a member of the Blacksburg Regional Arts Association. The association sponsored the exhibit with The Fine Arts Center for the New River Valley and The Jacksonville Center for the Arts.
To be considered for the show, the art had to have been completed after January 2005. Two-dimensional pieces could not exceed 48 inches in height or width, and three-dimensional pieces could not exceed 80 pounds or 5 feet on the longest dimension. And the artist had to be at least 18 and live within a 150-mile radius of Blacksburg, Floyd or Pulaski.
Each person could submit up to three works.
Along with Shawhan, photographers Eugene Gourley and Carol Wolfe were first-time submitters to the show, which has been going on since 1991.
Gourley, a retired biology teacher in Christiansburg, submitted photos from his travels out West. Although "Saguaro Sentinels," a picture of cacti in Arizona, wasn't his personal favorite, it beat his other two submissions for a spot in the show.
Wolfe, a science writer for American College Testing who lives in Blacksburg, took his selected photo "Reeds and Reflection" during a photography workshop in Michigan.
She began taking pictures in college as a way of documenting the flowers and plants she studied for a biology degree. She's working on a book about wildflowers and regularly takes her camera to Mountain Lake, the Cascades, the Blue Ridge Parkway and Pandapas Pond.
Judging for a juried show is very subjective, said Sue Bloom, the juror chosen by show sponsors to trim the 276 submissions to 36.
"That is why sponsoring organizations often secure a juror with a solid art background and from some distance away so that they do not personally know the participants," Sue Bloom wrote in an e-mail. "I'm six hours away in Maryland." She earned her bachelor's and master's of fine arts degrees from the Maryland Institute College of Art and is now chairwoman of the department of art and art history at McDaniel College in Maryland.
Bloom was also responsible for choosing which of the 36 pieces would receive awards given by local business and individuals.
Bloom added that she typically looks for several elements in a piece such as originality, mastery of the medium used and presentation.
Gourley and Wolfe agreed on what makes a good photo: light and a well-chosen subject. Shawhan said it has to do with a certain kind of experience.
"A good piece of art will provoke an experience in you," she said.
Gallery visitors may cast their vote for the People's Choice Award through Dec. 7.
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