The MTSU Todd Art Gallery in partnership with the Murfreesboro City Hall Art Committee (CHAC) invites the public to an opening reception Thursday, July 10, 2014, 5-7 p.m. for the Winner’s Invitational Exhibit featuring the awards’ recipients from the “Branches of One Tree Rooted in Love” themed art competitions held for the students of Murfreesboro City and Rutherford County Schools earlier in 2014.

The exhibit in Todd Art Gallery will display the 1st-3rd place and honorable mention winners in kindergarten through sixth grades of city schools and kindergarten through twelfth grades of county schools.  Dr. Debrah Sickler-Voigt and Charles Clary will speak on current topics related to their respective areas of the art world; art education and foundations of art/studio art. Sickler-Voigt is a respected and accomplished author with numerous articles published to her credit while Clary’s artistic style continues to elevate his name and work into the most prestigious of venues and artistic communities around the world. Also, two Best of Show plaques representing each art competition’s Best of Show art piece will be presented. Each will also be named in honor of a community art patron/supporter who will be announced during the reception before the plaque and artwork go on display in the city rotunda until replaced by next year’s recipients.

For a number of years the City Hall Art Committee has collaborated with administration and art teachers of Murfreesboro City Schools to host an annual competition to celebrate award winning art from the district’s students. Earlier this year working with County Schools Director Dr. Don Odom and Assistant Superintendent Paula Barnes an agreement of support was reached for CHAC to host an annual Art Competition for the students of Rutherford County Schools. Each district will now have a competition in the Rotunda near the start of each new calendar year. The MTSU Department of Art and Todd Art Gallery have generously agreed to partner with the schools and art committee to host a winner’s exhibit and reception each summer.

Next year’s planned exhibit theme is “E Pluribus Unum,” from the Great Seal of the United States.

Along with city and county schools administration, art teachers, art students and their parents a number of MTSU, Murfreesboro, and Rutherford County officials; election candidates, and other dignitaries are expected to attend including Murfreesboro’s new Mayor Shane McFarland, who will offer brief comments and present the city school’s plaque and honoree award.

Also opening July 10 in Todd Art Gallery 210, the student art gallery is Powderpuff an installation by MTSU and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) students showcasing collaborative and individual work intended to bring an element of flamboyance and humor to an often serious space while simultaneously aiming to reinterpret female stereotypes. Those students included are Erin Aliquo, Mika Mollenkopf, Erin Potter and Alison Ford, and VCU student, Laura McAdams. Of the work, Erin Potter says, “The lighthearted approach to these works may seem frivolous, but the joking tone talks about important issues without overloading the viewer. The irreverent objects ease the atmosphere of a show that could easily be fraught with tension and controversy. The irreverence towards gender politics is not meant to disregard it as a valid issue, but instead point out the existence of these problems as absurd.”

And, in the new Todd Art Gallery 212 the paper-making workshop of students from Art Professor Noel Lorson’s June 2014 Independent Study Course which includes Abigail Atkins, Heather Dillinger, Sarah Jackson, Leo Myers, Elizabeth Prickett, Caleb Smotherman, Nicole Wolowicz, and Noelle Yeargins will be on exhibit. In paper-making, a dilute suspension of paper fibers in water is drained through a screen, so that a mat of randomly interwoven fibers is laid down. The water is removed by pressing and drying to make paper and draped or molded to shape. Lorson’s class is expected to excel in their exhibition presentation, pressing farther with process and achieving results more elaborate and geared more toward mixed media art effects that ever-so-slightly rely on paper-making as its foundational component.

Information on the Todd Art Gallery:

All Todd Art Gallery exhibits, receptions, and lectures are free and open to the public. Gallery hours: 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday, closing only for state, federal, and university holidays and exhibit installations.