This show juried by: Jeff McIntire-Strasburg |
About The Juror: Jeff McIntire-Strasburg isn't sure whether he's a true Renaissance man, or just suffering from undiagnosed ADD. He does know, though, that since starting sustainablog in July, 2003, he's become a passionate advocate for building a greener world. This former English professor and current professional web content writer finds no greater joy than when he's scouting down the latest developments on sustainability in all its myriad forms: renewable energy development, organic agriculture, cradle to cradle design, green business… you get the picture. He also maintains Squidoo lenses on the green blogosphere and vermicomposting.
A native Southerner, Jeff grew up in Milton, Florida, and Lake Charles, Louisiana. After a sojourn into the desert (he attended graduate school at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas), he's settled into a semi-respectable life in St. Louis, Missouri, with his wife Jan, his three step-children, one dog and five (yes, five) cats. He enjoys long walks in the Missouri Botanical Gardens and Tower Grove Park (both just down the street from his 102-year-old house), spontaneous visits to ethnic restaurants (particularly Middle Eastern and South Asian cuisines), Saturday afternoons on the couch with a good mystery novel, and long, unproductive visits to local coffee shops (that sell fairly-traded, organic java, of course). |
Juror's Statement: I choose Deborah Leger's "Tulips and Tools" as the winning entry. This was a hard decision -- there were many wonderful uses of found materials ("trash"), and I thoroughly enjoyed how all of these artists saw "treasure" in these objects. In the case of "Tulips and Trash," what struck me was the artist's use of the "trash" that comes from her own process. Many of us recognize the waste of others -- Lager's work looks at how her act of creation also creates "trash." The rhythm of the piece emphasized that to me -- these "useless" objects are fit together to trace the creative process while also emphasizing the notion of finding in beauty in things others find disposable.
Honorable mentions:
Deborah Sprague's "The ARTIST Self Portrait" -- I had the same kind of reaction to this one as I had to Leger's work -- thought it went a step beyond simply seeing beauty in trash, and made a statement about art as creation, both of beauty and of waste.
Logophilia's "Not Yer Auntie" -- I particularly like the way the artist took the notion of seeing beauty in discarded objects, and transformed it into a statement on the notion of culturally-defined notions of human beauty. I was especially reminded of the work of Harlem Renaissance-era artist William H. Johnson, particularly his female nudes.
Diane G. Casey's "Eye of the Beholder 2" -- I enjoyed Casey's use of color, the commentary on the dichotomy of beauty and ugliness, and, finally, how she emphasized the upward movement created by the shape of the bottles themselves. |
