Exhibit honors UT artist community

The University of Toledo art community was well recognized at the 2011 Annual Toledo Area Artists Exhibition. Out of the 66 works included in the exhibition, seven were submitted by University of Toledo alumni, faculty or students.

The TAA Exhibition is a tradition nearly as old as the Toledo Art Museum itself as the program hit its 93rd year.

Brian Kennedy, Toledo Museum of Art director and Amy Gilman, associate director, served as the jurors for this year's exhibition and had some difficulty in determining which of the 757 submitted pieces would be on display.

"We were basically looking at narrowing it down until we felt that there was a really good show, and it just so happened that that narrowed it down to about 66," Gilman said. "It could be somebody that pushes the medium in a different direction, or anything like that, but really our largest determining factor was quality."

The winners of the various awards were recognized at the opening ceremony on Aug. 26. Leslie Adams, a UT alumna, received a First Award for her work "Senzione: A Self Portrait," and was given the opportunity to display her work in her own exhibit at the museum next year. Gilman recalls what it was that made Adams' work so effective.

"There were a number of the elements there that we thought were particularly compelling," Gilman said. "It's a wonderful charcoal drawing, but it is also very interesting and complex in the fact that it's a self-portrait and it has the medical component in the background. Leslie is a wonderful artist. She is incredibly skilled at portraiture and her work seems to be much more personal."

Adams was also presented with an award from the National League of American Pen Women's Northwest Ohio branch. Her solo exhibit will be on display in 2012. The representation of UT's artistic community did not stop with Adams. S

eder Burns, lecturer of new media at UT, also walked away with an award for his photograph "Sunset at the RV Lot.". The photo earned the Israel Abramofsky Award of the Temple-Congregation Shomer Emunim.

The University of Toledo Art Department Award was given to Tim Gaewsky, a Toledo resident, for his mixed-media piece "The Things We Fear in Life Are the Things We Can't Control." This award is given based on pushing the boundaries of a chosen medium. Jan Thomas, a UT student majoring in art history, won the Potters Guild Award for her ceramic piece entitled "Tattoo."

Among these, were still others who represented the UT artistic community.

UT student Susan Mitchell also had her work "Jack-Jack Sleeps," a three-color woodcut, chosen. "I See Myself Aging," a digital photograph submitted by alumnus Karen Matthews and "Through the Looking Lens," a watercolor by alumnus Chelsea Younkman, were also chosen. UT was represented again by Mania Dajnak, part-time faculty member in the art department, who submitted a piece called "Her Fractured Architecture 1," a conte crayon and woodcut collage.

The strong response by the University of Toledo artistic community comes almost as a surprise to Gilman, but not an unwelcome one. "I'm delighted," she said.

"The University of Toledo Art Department is feeding the community in a variety of ways by bringing professors here who develop deep roots in the community and stay here, by educating students that need to live in the community and by continuing to bring in the people from outside who go on to submit for the show. So, I think that's fantastic."

According to Gilman, few museums continue to hold juried exhibitions of original artwork.

"When this exhibition started, there were many, many like it around the country held by museums and other art organizations and now there are many fewer of them," she said.

The support for the Toledo Museum of Art by the surrounding artistic community helps greatly to keep programs like the Toledo Area Artists Exhibition popular and growing.

"I think that [the support] was really indicated by the large number of people we had at the opening at the end of August, which was fantastically attended," Gilman said. "I thought it was wonderful."

The exhibit runs through Sept. 25 in the Canaday Gallery at the Toledo Museum of Art and admission is free.