REGENHARDT GALLERY AT SHRODE ART CENTER
SHRODE FINE ART & CRAFT COMPETITION EXHBIT
February 25 – April 28, 2024
- Exhibit Open: Tuesday – Saturday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm & Sunday 1:00 to 5:00 pm
- Gallery Admission – Free
GATHER AT THE GALLERIES – EXHIBIT OPENING RECEPTION
Saturday, February 24 | 5:00 to 7:00 pm
Admission $10.00 | Cedarhurst Members – Free
• Open bar and appetizers | 5 to 6 pm
• Gallery hop to see the art and meet the artists | 5 to 7 pm
• Shuttle rides to Shrode Art Center | 6 to 7 pm
Art Chat
Sunday, April 28 | 3:00 pm
Regenhardt Gallery at Shrode Art Center
Moderator: Carrie Stover
Exhibiting artists and public welcome
GALLERY SPONSORS:
EXHIBIT SPONSORS:
The Bernard and Naomi L. Podolsky Charitable Trust
ABOUT THE EXHIBIT:
The Shrode Fine Art and Craft Competition and Exhibition is an annual exhibit open to all artists 18 years of age and older living in southern Illinois, south of Interstate 70, including Charleston, IL. Artists may enter a variety of media including painting, drawing, printmaking, clay, fiber, mixed media, wood, fine jewelry, metal, and sculpture. There are five prestigious awards: Best of Show ($400), Best of 2-Dimensional ($250), Best of 3-Dimensional ($250), 2 Honorable Mention ($175 each), and 4 Merit Certificates. This year 155 works of art were submitted for judging and 41 works were chosen for the exhibit by Michael Terra, our guest judge.
ABOUT THE Judge:
Michael Terra has been a working artist since 1975 in one media or another. Early in his career he was a large format oil painter and over the last 49 years as worked in a snack-pack of different media. He has taught workshops at various universities, arts organizations, and in school systems around the country. In the last 25 years he has worked primarily in clay and language, combining the two into unique sculptures that have found their way into thousands of homes and institutions.
His current studio practice includes public art sculptures, digital painting, poetry and ceramics. He is also active in Social Justice and is well known regionally for the Empty Bowls Project in Paducah (which addresses food insecurity issues in our communities) and for UNESCO involvement internationally.
He lives and works with his wife and partner, Victoria, in Paducah, KY under the careful supervision of 4 cats.
Comments from the Competition Judge:
First of all a ‘thank you’ to everyone involved in pulling this show together!
I know that each and every artist that has submitted to this process has put uncounted hours toward this moment (and their collective partners and families have too). I know the staff and leadership at Cedarhurst has annually maintained this legacy- showcasing the regional brilliance that otherwise might be invisible to the general public. With this in mind I really appreciated spending quality time with each and every one of these works and the decision was not easy… good work y’all!
So… what goes into the process of judging work for a show like this? What makes the ‘most worthy’ submission? I look for three basic components:
~ Mastery of Craft (does the artist handle the materials with a level of expertise and maturity?)
~ Originality of Voice (is the artist creating from their own experience or echoing something else?)
~ Successful Storytelling, (have they created something that communicates and involves the audience?)
Every artwork in this show has all of these qualities and, as a result, assigning the final awards became very difficult.
Please enjoy the work (as much as I did) and take enough time to let the story come to you… you won’t regret it!
