Annual Art Show Amazes All
Friday, May 22, 2009
 |
The 2009 Student Art Show awards ceremony was held at noon on May 13 in the North Santiam Hall lobby. Over $3000 in awards were given out this year to students. The event attracted well over 50 students and the NSH lobby was packed.
The show had over 200 pieces submitted, and 60 pieces are displayed. Doug Russell, gallery director at OSU, juried the show. This year, the Corvallis Fall Festival committee selected a piece to represent LBCC at the annual Fall Festival. The awards were announced and then the audience was encouraged to look around at the pieces and vote for the People’s Choice Award. All awards are posted next to the pieces that won.
Jeremy Covert, the gallery coordinator, said not only do students get awards from the show but also their pieces sell or they get commissioned for more work. He said one student already sold a set of glassware and two more students have been commissioned. During the ceremony, Covert said submitting artwork takes a lot of courage and he thanked the students for all their hard work.
According to Analee Fuentes, an art instructor at LBCC, the show happens every year around this time. Deadlines to submit to the show are usually right after spring break, and she says information about the show comes out during March. Fuentes feels the show is important because it gives students an opportunity to learn about juried shows. She says it teaches students about competing and improving the presentation of their artwork. She feels it’s good for them to learn about shows because it will be part of their careers. “It’s been an honor working with these students. They are really a talented bunch,” Fuentes said.Gabrielle Snider, an art student who won the Fall Festival award, said the event was pretty exciting. She said her favorite thing about her piece that won was that “it’s just absurd. It doesn’t take itself seriously.”
Gary Westford, an LBCC instructor, said this was “one of the strongest shows I can remember.” Westford said he has been at LBCC for eight years and the show has been going on for at least that long. He feels that the show validates the students’ hard work.
Westford said that in these difficult economic times it is important that we do not lose sight of the arts. He felt that “works of art and literature edify us at our best,” and “it is at our peril to have these programs go away.”
Dori Litzer, another art teacher at LBCC, said she always thinks the show is good. She felt the department did a great job getting awards for the students. Litzer wishes they had more space to display all the pieces, or another gallery to display the works that were not accepted.
Comment
Commenting is closed for this article.
