Students got an opportunity to show off their hard work and creativity at the Student Works Show gallery opening in the art gallery at John Brown University.
The gallery opening began at 6 p.m. March 1 and ran for an hour and a half.
Senior Analu Marín perused the opening with her friend, senior Andrea Marroqín. Marín submitted work to the gallery and the two friends went together to view all of the art.
“Sometimes you spend so much time doing something, but nobody really gets to see it,” Marin said. She said that once you can show your work to others you feel that it was worth the effort.
“I think it’s just great to see people that I know and what type of work they can do. And it’s just amazing, it looks so professional, ” Marroqín said.
From the year the Visual Arts Foundry took over the Communication and Art Student Association work has been submitted to Student Works Show so that students both in and outside the art department can display their creative works.
“It’s just something that we do and it’s a way that we can recognize our hard work from the year and can boast about it because we have it up in the gallery,” said senior Hilary Eash, Visual Art Foundry’s president.
Paintings, posters and other worked crammed the walls in the gallery as similarly crowded students meandered through.
The gallery spans eight different styles of art, featuring such diverse works as junior Matthias Robert’s “Lisa”, commercial photography of ornamented sophomore Lisa Hopper reclining in a chair, a short video “Happy Birthday George”, directed by senior Jonathan Daniel and written by seniors Michael Bruner and Aaron Hoegenauer, and junior Starla Koehler’s program of JBU’s production of The Three Musketeers.
The seven categories are non-commercial photography, commercial photography, graphic design, illustration, printmaking, cinema, digital art and fine art, according to Steve Snediker, assistant professor of visual arts and cinema.
Eash said that they had a record number of pieces for the gallery: 151. She said the event averages about 80 to 100. “I don’t know how we’re doing it,” she said. Eash hopes that next year they will be able to take in even more pieces with the extra gallery in the new art building.
Junior Karson Holbrook, who serves as president for the Student Film Society branch of the Foundry, helped with setting up the event throughout the process. “It’s some of the best work we’ve had,” he said.
There will be a cash prize for first, second and third place in all categories, as well as best of show. The winners will be announced during the Arties on March 9. After the Arties the winners will be designated in the gallery.
Snediker explained that the show is judged by a jury. The jury is not given criteria to judge the work. “We bring in professionals and they judge based on their preference,” he said. “It’s a model that we’re using that is typical in the business.”
Sophomore Jay Vogt, studying graphic and web design, said “I find myself in a lot of cases jealous. … It’s amazing the creativity that some of these people have.” Vogt hopes to be able to do more creative work next year, when he enters some other classes that will help him along the way.
The gallery will be open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and Sunday 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. until it closes on March 16.