About 150 students, faculty, and art enthusiasts squeezed into Slocumb Galleries last night for the opening of “Student Honor Show 2007” to view 126 pieces of student artwork on display through May 5.
Derek Guthrie, international art critic and founding editor of The New Art Examiner, served as guest juror for the show and chose 126 pieces from 282 entries while visiting campus last week for a speaking engagement.
“He was looking for passionate and intuitive work rather than intellectual,” said Karlota Contreras-Koterbay, director of Slocumb Galleries. “We have really strong expectations and we’ve set up standards so it’s worth showing.”
Scholarships and awards were also announced, including the Margaret and Ruth Hays scholarship for incoming freshman art majors, as well as cash prizes for several of the pieces on display in the gallery.
“I wasn’t expecting it at all because my teachers told me there were over 200 participants submitting their work,” said foundation award and juror’s choice winner Alisa Walker, who won $100 for “Wire Form – Cockatoo.” “I mean, how can you complain?”
Walker’s work included the poetry of Victor Hugo, her favorite poet, as well as a picture of her grandmother and pressed flowers.
“It’s something that’s very personal,” Walker said. “She’s actually the one that got me collecting pressed flowers.”
Other awards include the foundations 3-D award, which was presented to Matt Oerly for “Clay Abstraction Eggs and Water.”
“I try to enter in everything I can to show as much stuff as possible,” Oerly said. “I hadn’t worked in clay for years.”
Many of the pieces on display represented hours of work each artist spent creating their submission such as art student Amy Crowder’s books, which used handmade paper bound by thread coated in wax. Both books took about eight hours to create, though the end result was worth it, Crowder said.
“It’s new and fresh and I’m enjoying showing it off,” Crowder said.
Though everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, it’s not easy displaying something which has so much of oneself in it, Crowder said.
“There’s something in art that people are very sensitive of because it’s an extension of themselves,” Crowder said.

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