[Music] hello my name is anne noonan i'm on the plymouth arts council and i'm so glad you're joining us for the virtual awards ceremony for the 2021 primavera springtime celebration of the arts before we introduce our judge i just wanted to share with you a little bit of information about primavera this is the 24th year that we are hosting this annual exhibit at the plymouth community center it is a juried art exhibit with the plymouth arts council reviewing and accepting submissions participants include artists from plymouth and surrounding communities minnetonka maple grove excelsior prior lake in minneapolis to name a few artwork is made using various mediums including oil watercolor acrylics ceramics photography fiber art steel wood and even plastic waste in 2021 82 adult entries and 28 high school student entries were accepted artwork is judged and nine awards are given out each year in student and adult categories and we're so happy to have this year's judge who is craig campbell who i will introduce to you now and he can tell you a little bit more about himself thanks again for joining us hello my name is craig campbell and i'm the judge this year for the primavera art exhibition we just finished the jurying and i'd like to talk a little bit about why i chose the pieces i chose and give you a little bit of my background i've been in the arts for the last 40 years as a producing artist selling my work and traveling around the country making my living through that process i've seen a lot of work i've seen a lot of artists and also taught in some of the local colleges here in wisconsin with that experience i come to this show to see what i think is some of the best work and the basis for that i believe that the best artwork communicates visually so no words are needed not too much technology and when you look at it you have a re you have a visceral response i found some work in this show that fits that category and i'd like to talk a little bit about that now in the category the adult work i'm going to talk about the three pieces that are getting recognition and then one piece is getting the best in show the first piece i want to talk about is by nadia wexaf it's a it's a portrait of a young woman looking to the left and i saw it later later today went up and i have to say it really struck me as having real presence there's some design elements that are at work there but mostly the ability of the artist to render the face and to create a space on that page that wants me to know more about it i'm going to refer this way a number of times but if i own that piece it wouldn't be something you could walk by each day and not stop and look at it she's looking off to the to the left and you want to know what's she looking at there are also some purple lines across her face obviously from another hidden light source which also draws you in makes you want to know more about it second one is by marie hayda it's a an acrylic painting again struck by it when i saw it passing the first time a few times around i actually thought it was a photograph not because of the precision of the acrylic but because of the way the paint was applied to the canvas and the imagery and design draws you into the space and the first time i saw it i had this sense of serenity and calmness it's a picture of a boat at a landing and a lake and a dock and some shoreline flora and fauna sounds common enough but the way it's rendered and the tones and colors used really create a sense that you can feel the last one is a self-portrait that's ceramic and it's done by um amy fitzgerald it's a small piece about this big again saw it loved it and connected with historical items that have the same sense about them this piece is almost looks like it could be mayan it's a cross between a human form and an animal form and yet not in a bizarre or a unbelievable way the head is looking up a bit and has long almost donkey-like ears and i believe the process is raku for a small object i thought it had some real striking weight not weight but significance um so those are the three pieces from the students that get awards of excellence now i'm moving on to the adults the first piece is an unlikely sort of an unlikely piece but i kept coming back i have to say i walked the show probably 10 times and looked at each piece a number of times took a break come back and look at them again and slowly the pieces that are significant will sort of shift to the top for me in my brain these are these are pieces chosen from my criteria after looking at art for the last 40 years i wish i had more awards by the way so the first piece is called bluescape it's a small painting maybe that big but coming back to it it again draws me in to wonder about the depth of the color some of the lines that are painted over there just barely visible it triggers my imagination which i would come back to over and over again that piece could be five by five it has that much power the second one is a piece called um wires it's uh it struck me as being a vignette from a dying town a small dying town and yet it's just a visual it's uh it's speaking to me in my own way it's got a lot of imagery on the left and then a lot of open space the contrast between that open space and the i think it's a water tower and some thin wires speaks to me of dying towns and how they're they're on their last legs and this open space where nobody lives anymore is what used to be a town the third one is a three-dimensional piece we don't have too many three-dimensional piece but it's it's certainly a piece that's done with uh great ability and a real fine craftsmanship being a glassblower i'm quite familiar with craftsmanship and different materials this piece is called sato voce and it's a wood piece large undulating wood and i've walked around it a number of times and you want it there's a sign that says don't touch you want to touch it because it appeals to our sensual side almost at a gut level and coming back to it and coming back to it you want to feel the shapes because we are tactile people so that was three so the best in show i'm giving to a piece by leah mikowski it's a photograph it's called imagine a day in his shoes that piece operates on two levels and it took me to the to the end of my judging to really decide on this the first level when you read the the title imagine a day in his shoes is for me a little pretentious but it's factual and you can understand the artist's perspective the second level that it appeals to me is the design and texture in the in the print is really unparalleled the colors in it are placed in such a way that make it almost cut up into quadrants the eroding wall on the back waffles between destruction and this really rich textural surface i just found a lot to continue to look at beyond the title of the piece so those are the pieces i've selected today i hope you're happy with it remember that if you're a working artist that has pieces in the show and didn't get an award or recognition it's not because the work was bad or because it wasn't professional enough i would encourage you to work more work for yourself if i were to say change the work in any way a good friend of mine who taught for many years said if you ever wonder about a two-dimensional work a drawing or painting how you want to make it better make the darkers dark darker make the darks darker and the lights lighter contrast make them higher contrast i saw some designs that were really exceptional but the contrast was very muted so i really encourage you to keep working be happy with the work you're doing look at lots of other work and carry on thanks good evening i'm jackie frizzini i'm a member of the plymouth arts council and i want to thank our judge craig campbell for his remarks about our winners tonight we have two more awards that we like to give out every year at the end of primavera and we have an award that's called the myrna kaner award which is named after the charter member of the plymouth arts council she was an educator and so we always like to give that to a student this year we have chosen cherries in the rain by megan schultz who is a student at wyzetta senior high school for our other award which is given by the awarded by the plymouth arts council we like to choose a plymouth resident to receive this award and this year the award is going to addie moscow who whose piece was called the heart of a clown it's a sculpture made out of steel we want to thank all of you for joining us this year for the 24th annual primavera celebration of the arts thank you so much [Music] you