JANUARY • FEBRUARY • 2013
Statewide Fine Arts Competition and Exhibition More than 100 Michigan artists submitted up to three works each for this year’s competition. Artists from Traverse City, Grand Rapids, the Detroit area, and the local Jackson area competed for a spot in the popular exhibit. Thirty-two artists and 39 works of art will be showcased during the opening reception on January 12 from 2:30-4:30 pm. The event is free and open to the public, with awards given at 3 p.m. The theme for the 2013 Statewide Fine Arts Competition is the “Power of Portraits.” Portraits can convey more than a likeness. They can speak volumes about the sitter as well as the artist. Whether realistic or abstracted, 2-D or 3-D, portraits mirror the world in which we live by capturing us in a specific moment in time. Michigan artists were invited to imagine, construct, and create their idea of a portrait. Awards with monetary values are as follows: Best of Show ($1000), two Exceptional Merit Awards ($750 each), two Merit Awards ($450 each) and one 3-D Merit Award ($450). Juror Thomas McMillen-Oakley is the Lead Faculty for the Studio Art Department at Jackson Community College. McMillen-Oakley received his M.A. from Spring Arbor College; a B.Ed from the University of Toledo and in 2004 was named the Michigan Art Education Association’s Higher Education Art Teacher of the year.
Ella’s 2013 Statewide Fine Arts Exhibit Reception for 2013 Exhibit January 12, 2:30-4:30 pm Awards at 3 pm
Walter Koelz: The Last Great Victorian Explorer An exhibit telling the story of Walter Koelz and his expeditions is opening January 17 in the Emmet and Pyron Galleries. Walter Koelz, born in 1895 in Waterloo, Michigan, was a zoologist and collector who acquired many artifacts on his world travels. Koelz was a member of the MacMillan-Byrd Expedition to Greenland in 1925. With his traveling partner, Rup Chand, Koelz also journeyed to and collected in Tibet, India, Persia and Nepal numerous times from the 1930s through the 1950s. Walter Koelz documented
his travel and work in South Asia and in the Middle East, as well as his life in Michigan, both before and after traveling abroad. With artifacts borrowed from the University of Michigan’s Museum of Anthropology, the Ella Sharp Museum will display objects that show the scope of his collecting career. The exhibit includes cultural and religious objects as well as birds and plants from central Asia that Koelz collected for the University of Michigan. In addition, the exhibit will display tools collected by Koelz on his Greenland expedition.
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IN THIS ISSUE: Saturday Series (pg. 3) Rosetta Wildlife Art (pg. 4) Art Tutorials (pg. 5)
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