From the Juror

Wendy Castenell

Assistant Professor of African American Art in the Department of Art and Art History The University of Alabama

It was a great pleasure to work as a juror for the 44TH Montgomery Art Guild Museum Exhibition at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. There were 443 submissions this year, of which I selected 74 for the exhibition.

It was incredible to see the eclectic and interesting works by local artists. I was especially impressed with the breadth of media, subject, and style amongst the submissions. In selecting works for the show, I deliberately tried to showcase the diversity of the submissions by choosing examples from a wide variety of media that included a large number of 2-D and 3-D pieces and that were a mix of abstract and naturalistic. The result, I think, is an eclectic show that showcases the range and variety of the talented local artists who submitted to the show.

That said, after walking through the exhibition, a few prominent interests and themes emerged from the selected pieces. I was drawn to several works that used nontraditional media, such as textiles, paper, found objects, and mixed media. I was also deeply interested in artworks that evoked a sense of the local and the Southern because of the way they seemed to be rooted in Alabama. Finally, I was moved by the number of works that were related to the collective experiences and challenges facing the local and national communities over the past year due to the pandemic anxiety and the spotlight shone on racial injustice. Ultimately, I hope this exhibition will inspire the public as well as the participants to continue to be creative while displaying their personal experiences.