Photo provided Brown County Art Guild is featuring the annual Patron & Young Artist Exhibition, featuring over 80 pieces of original artwork made by members of the public, available for viewing until Feb. 14.
There’s one time of year at the Brown County Art Guild to view works created and submitted by members of the local community, and that time is now.
The annual Patron & Young Artist Exhibition, featuring over 80 pieces of original artwork made by members of the public, is now available for viewing until Feb. 14. While the guild’s usual displays consist of works by its 40 members or historic pieces by its founders, this exhibition gives the public a chance to have their artwork displayed at the guild, gallery director Marti Garvey said.
“It’s just… a nice opportunity for the public artists out there who’ve maybe never exhibited or have been too shy to show their art. It gives them the opportunity to be able to do that and it’s always really fun,” Garvey said. “We get a lot of artists from the community and from Bloomington. I have a couple artists from Columbus that entered in, so it’s always a success every year.”
The exhibition will conclude following a free reception from 2 to 4 p.m. Feb. 14. Awards will be handed out at 3 p.m. and light refreshments will be served.
The Brown County Art Guild’s current hours are Thursdays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. It is also open Monday through Wednesday by appointment.
Artists could choose from two categories for submissions, a patron category for those 19 years old and older, and the young artists category for those 18 years old and younger. Works submitted vary in their mediums from pastels to oils to mixed media, and the subject matter varies greatly too, Garvey said.
“We’ve got a lot of beautiful oils, watercolors, we’ve got some stunning pen and ink graphite portraits of people who have posed for the artist… landscapes, it’s just kind of all over the place,” Garvey said. “It’s a really beautiful show.”
Over 30 of their submissions were in the young artist category, with some of the submissions from kids as young as elementary school age. Many of the younger artists’ pieces depict personal and emotional things, and Garvey said it’s neat to see what the kids are doing as she believes they come from a more emotional space.
“But we’ve got the high schoolers, you start to see a little bit more… refined work as you get into the high schoolers, the ones who are a little bit more serious,” Garvey said.
The exhibition steadily grows every year, with Garvey saying they received more submissions this year than the last. She said they accept as many submissions as they can get and she has tried to reach out to as many area school corporations as she can. Most of them are local, but they also received submissions from Delphi, she said.
“It’s because one of our guild artists lives up there and they’ve been participating for the last two years,” Garvey said. “But (it’s) mainly more regional, it’s just easier for people to get here, but this one teacher’s really been excited and she actually submitted two of her own pieces in the patron category too.”
Artists also have a chance to win first, second and third place awards and prize money for their submitted work in both the patron artist category and the young artist category. A best in show award and a people’s choice award will also be selected. Guild artist members Mark Burkett and Jeanne McLeish will be judges this year.
The exhibition not only gives members of the public a chance to display their work, but Garvey said it also gives the community a chance to come out and see the work that’s being done out there by other community artists that they wouldn’t see anywhere else.
“It really is community oriented, (the) community can come in here any time and see all the beautiful works we have, but this gives them the opportunity to see the other artists in our community and their works,” Garvey said.
