3 jurors bring differing views to difficult task

Three Utah artists brought a variety of professional experience from their differing artistic backgrounds to jury the entries for the "2007 Color of the Land" Deseret Morning News/Days of '47 Landscape Art Show.

Jurors Brad Teare, Ruby Chacon and Edie Roberson narrowed the pool of 215 submissions down to 60 pieces to be displayed in the Museum of Utah Art and History through July 24.

Jurying the show was a daylong process for the trio as they sorted their way through stacks of art depicting a wide array of outdoor scenes.

Each piece was reviewed individually by all the jurors, who conferred and discussed the work's qualities before either eliminating it from the competition, assigning it a place in the show or setting it aside for further review.

Teare, a wood-cut artist and accomplished illustrator, said the process went fairly smoothly as everyone generally agreed on which pieces stood out as definite gallery material. He said the paintings that appealed to him had a strong emotional element. "For me, the ultimate criteria is the emotional content of the piece. If the emotional content is strong enough, I'll go with that every time."

As an artist who focuses her work on the human experience — concentrating on telling stories by using human figures in her paintings — Chacon said she prefers landscape pieces that have character, "where the artist's voice sort of jumps out at you." The artwork she liked best showed the artist's understanding of composition as well as his or her unique style. "I tend to like the combination of technical as well as expressive."

Roberson, a self-described "post-modern" painter, said she was impressed with the variety of the entries. The works displayed a lot of imagination, and she said the jurors' selections will make for a varied, diverse show. "It's going to be eclectic, (with) a lot of different styles, different approaches, different media."

While the contest was open to people of all abilities (18 and older), the jurors agreed it was apparent which works were made by veteran artists. Chacon said there's a certain confidence conveyed by an experienced painter's brush stroke.

In addition to choosing which pieces will appear in the show, the jurors were responsible for selecting which artists would be awarded cash prizes and honorable mentions.

Prior to the final judging, Teare said he didn't anticipate the selection process would come to blows, though he did predict there would be some "friendly disagreement" when it came time to select the prize winners.

Overall, he said "I'm very pleased that it was difficult. ... I wanted to pick from the very best."

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E-mail: mfarmer@desnews.com