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The prestigious Best of Show Award (top photo) - sponsored by Santa Paula Chevrolet - was won by Lee Hodges of Ventura. Santa Paula Society of the Arts President Lynda Gruber took 1st Place in the Jury of Your Peers in the Photography category for her “Up, Up and Away We Go!” image of hot air balloons (bottom photo). |
Hodges’ ‘Epiphany’ top winner at 75th Annual SP Art & Photo Show
March 30, 2012
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Although the Santa Paula Art & Photography Show was founded well before exhibit Chairman Gerald Zwers was born, “I feel 75,” he said with a laugh at Saturday’s Award Reception at Blanchard Community Library. With 377 entries the annual show has come a long way - literally and figuratively - from its first where 27 paintings of subjects within eight miles of the city were featured.
The show and reception were organized and sponsored by the Santa Paula Society of the Arts, and entries came from throughout Southern California and beyond.
The prestigious Best of Show Award - sponsored by Santa Paula Chevrolet - was won by Lee Hodges of Ventura, whose Mixed Media/Graphics “Epiphany” garnered the most votes overall from all categories. In the 2007 show alone Hodges earned 1st Place in both the Jury of Your Peers and People’s Choice; in other years she has also won the 1st Place Douglas Shively, People’s Choice, Best of Show and Mixed Media/Graphics awards.
Noted artist and art professor Dorothy Orr was studying the entries at the Diamond Jubilee show where others were admiring her paintings accepted into the competition. Just seven weeks away from retiring from Ventura Community College, Orr had a ready answer to what she plans to do with her newfound spare time: “I’m going to paint!”
Cheryl Knight, president of Santa Clara Valley Bank, was on hand to award the bank-sponsored People’s Choice prizes and enjoy the show. “Isn’t this exciting?” she asked. “So much wonderful art!”
Janice Dickenson had a painting in the show, her husband Bruce’s beloved airplane. Although she first started to dabble in watercolors only two years ago, this is the second year Dickenson had an entry accepted for further judging. “Janice,” said Linda Bartleson, “is truly gifted.”
“If she sells it,” Bruce Dickenson said of his wife’s entry, “she’ll have to paint me another one!”
Santa Paula Community Bank President Don Tello was admiring the artwork and waiting to award the bank-sponsored Douglas Shively Award of Excellence - Jury of Your Peers prizes. “I think the concept of the prize category is pretty great,” noted Tello, “an especially great honor for an artist to have their peers judge their work the best.”
It is also an honor that many works of Shively’s hang in the Santa Paula bank branches, as Shively - a rancher and banker - was the former president of Citizens State Bank, founded by his father, which was acquired by Santa Paula Community Bank from a former owner.
The room was filled with artists, their supporters and fans: Judy Klement was studying the works of competitors in the Pastels category, and Betty White was helping wherever help was needed. Helen Gunderson was being kept busy at the buffet tables, while other Society members oversaw the ballots for the People’s Choice Award, the results of which were being counted and added to earlier tallies in a back room.
Zwers told the crowd it takes hundreds of hours to prepare the annual show, “so much effort by so many volunteers,” and he urged all to visit the Santa Paula Art Museum to view two new exhibits related to the original show.
Zwers said judging is done “three separate ways... for the Judges - Founders Awards,” sponsored by Limoneira Company. Entries in the category were judged by acclaimed artists Glenna Kurz and Sherry Loehr, who considered the entries in the Oils/Acrylic, Watercolor, Mixed Media/Graphics and Pastel categories, and noted photographer Tim Hauf, who judged the Photography entries.
Zwers said the People’s Choice - Pat Johnson Memorial Awards result from the public voting for their favorites, and the Jury of Your Peers is limited to artists whose entries were accepted in the show. All show entries were first pre-judged by noted photographer, curator and gallery owner John Nichols of Santa Paula. Zwers said when all results were tabulated they are then added together for the Best in Show prize.
One major prizewinner who was in the building but in the backroom cleaning up from ballot counting when awards were announced was Santa Paula Society of the Arts President Lynda Gruber, who took 1st Place in the Jury of Your Peers in the Photography category for her “Up, Up and Away We Go!” image of hot air balloons. The photograph also took the top prize in its category.
“I counted it,” said Gruber with a laugh, but taking the top prizes “didn’t sink in! It was fun and - and so much fun to be in the running!”
Top winners in the 75th Santa Paula Art & Photography Show included another two-time winner, Gail Pidduck of Santa Paula, who won 1st Place in both her Judges category as well as the People’s Choice award with her Oil/Acrylics titled “Morning Sycamore.”
First Place Judges Awards were also given to Rex Kochel for the Watercolors category “Barcelona Musica”; Photography “Fillmore & Western Locomotive #14” by J.D. Wolff; Mixed Media & Graphics Karen Scott Browdy’s “August Century”; and “Santa Ynez” in the Pastels category by Marsha MacDonald.
Aside from Pidduck, other top winners in the Peoples Choice division were Yoka Yohanna for her Watercolor “Waiting for Daddy”; Photography, Gruber; Mixed Media & Graphics Ruben Yadao’s “Tropical Beauties”; and for Pastels, Jannene Behl’s “Owens Valley Serenade.”
Jury of Your Peers 1st Place Awards were given to “Red Lobster,” an Oil/Acrylics work by Tony Jankowski; Yohanna’s Watercolors “Waiting for Daddy”; Gruber’s Photograph “Up, Up and Away We Go!”; “Epiphany” by Hodges; and Behl’s Pastels entry.
