10th Annual Juried Exhibition winners

River City Art Association celebrated its 10th anniversary during the RCAA 10th Annual Juried Exhibition opening reception on Aug. 3, 2018, in First Financial Bank in downtown Terre Haute.

First Financial and assistant vice president of marketing Sally Whitehurst hosted the reception and awards ceremony with many of the 29 exhibiting artists from the Wabash Valley attending the First Friday event.

Best of Show winnings, sponsored by First Financial, went to Bill Wolfe for his oil painting titled “Wyatt with Oars.”

A commemorative cake and special displays recognized RCAA’s seven charter members Ruthann Brady, Kit Fisher, Adrianus Fraza, Monty “Indiana” Jones, Debi Martinez, the late Marty Martinez and the late Rob Robbins, who founded the art association in August 2008 in the Martinezes’ Raven Art Gallery in Terre Haute.

To further mark RCAA’s 10-year milestone, co-founders Brady and Jones and past president Donald E. Turner, a member since early 2009, were honored with the Rob Robbins Memorial Award for Excellence in the Arts for their personal achievements as well as lasting contributions to RCAA and the arts community.

Past president Todd Stokes paid tribute to Robbins, an award-winning photographer and dedicated charter member who died just a few months after RCAA observed its five-year anniversary. Stokes also presented Robbins’ sons Patrick and Tom with their father’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Another special award went to Dian Der Ohanian Phillips for her dedicated service as president this year and as graphic designer since joining River City Art Association.

Past president Todd Stokes presented Phillips with the Marty Martinez Contributory Award, in memory of the late founding president.

Juror and professional artist David Erickson also attended the reception to announce winners in five categories as well as Best of Show.

Erickson, a professor emeritus of art at Indiana State University, taught printmaking, papermaking and drawing for more than three decades. In addition, he exhibits his work locally, nationally and internationally, and is active within the community with theater set designs as well as large-scale murals and tile mosaics. He is acknowledged as a major contributor to the growth of handmade papermaking in America.

More than 80 entries are on display through Aug. 30 in the First Financial Bank during regular banking hours.

First-place medallions were awarded to Steve Harrold for his oil painting, “Oh It’s You”; Sheila K. Ter Meer for a photography-based digital abstraction, “Party Girl”; Valerie Funk for a mixed media entry in fabric, “Radiant Rhapsody”; Monty Jones for his work in colored pencil, “Horned Owl,” in the drawing category; and Edith Acton for a fused glass wall hanging in the ceramics/glass category for “Pretty in Red & Blue.”

Second-place honors went to Jim Rhodes for his acrylic painting, “Leaving the Queen City”; Todd Stokes for a mixed media entry in etched glass and photography, “Fall Cycle 2”; Rhodes for a graphite drawing, “Sweet Load”; Thomas Wright for his “Blue to Chrome” on metallic paper in the photography category; and Marcia Norman for her shattered glass piece titled “Summer Beauty.”

Third-place recognition went to Elise Spaid-Roberts for her chalk pastel drawing, “Growing”; Dian Der Ohanian Phillips for her acrylic painting, “Inferno”; Kyma Drake for a mixed media piece in brass and steel nails, “A Longing Fulfilled is a Tree of Life”; Alexandra McNichols-Torroledo for a photography entry, a platinum palladium print titled “Waiting to be Raided by American Soldiers at Camp from Standing Rock”; and Edith Acton for a wall hanging in fused glass titled “Lovely Squares.”

The reception ended with the Artists’ Choice Award going to Mary M. Wilson of Indianapolis for an acrylic painting, “Synchronicity 227.”

Voting for the recipient of the People’s Choice Award will end Aug. 30.

Since the first fall juried exhibition in 2009, the open competition has featured artwork by an impressive number of emerging as well as professional Indiana and Illinois artists.

This year’s exhibition also features artwork by Richard Acton, Marvetta Bee, Ruthann Brady, Robert DeFrance, Michael R. Elmore, Sandy Fisher, David V. Gill, Christel Gutelius, Eloise Lovell, Brian Miller, Leigh Ann Perkins, Judith Lynn Smith, Marsha Stewart, John Thompson and Spencer Young.

RCAA is open to any Indiana and Illinois artist age 18 and older. Artists meet the second Tuesday of each month in the Vigo County Public Library in Terre Haute. For more information contact past president Todd Stokes at 812-232-0048.