Art of our Ancestors competition winners

Gallery Show: Art of our Ancestors
Artists Closing Reception: October 23

We're proud to present our autumn show, Art of our Ancestors. This show is about our cultural kinship with our ancestors. Laurie Sylwester, artist and professor emeritus at Columbia College in Tuolumne County, gently judged the show. She shared some of her thoughts about the winners of the show; read them below.

"Thanks to all the artists who participated," she writes. "Realize that a different judge would make other decisions."

Two dimensional art

First place 2D
Best of Show
The Source: A Shaman’s Gift
James Respess
Digital

Conceptually and artistically captures the theme from the ancient enigmatic petroglyphs to the ray of light/mist (we ARE stardust!). The bird is considered a messenger from the Gods to the ancestors, and water is life. I can keep returning to the piece and seeing more—people in the rocks—and more. Great art sustains your interest and you can keep returning to it.

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Second place 2D
Life’s Journey
Lori Kelly
Acrylic

So very well done! This one calls to mind my favorite piece at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento. The old man that completely encompasses a whole room. The ancestor in this second place piece is so emotive. Great work!

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Third place 2D
Scenes of Bodie, California
Susan Carracedo
Watercolor

Churches are architecture, thus art of the ancestors. The church is an expression of the ancestors and the window selection allowed light to enter; light was considered the proof of God. So, that is they the church was selected over the other Bodie images. Nicely done.

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Honorable mention 2D
Inishere Island, Ireland
Susie Hoffman
Watercolor

Celtic crosses were the only monumental sculpture in the early medieval ages, an era of the great migration and small migration art. So, the crosses both were the markers and marked the burial of ancestors. I like the abstraction of the watery paint flowing from the cemetery.

Three dimensional art

First place 3D
Love of the Land and its Creatures
Marlene Bradford
Ceramic

An ancestor with feet of clay, well grounded in the earth! The animals anchor the young woman with the giant bird creating an emotional pull disproportionate to its normal size. The turtle plays a role in Native American and Aboriginal Australian creation/origin stories.

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Second place 3D
Blue Kokoshnik (Russian Head dress)
Larisa Stevenson
Ceramic

This head is a proficient ceramic sculpture with the implication that the ancestral homeland lives in her/his mind. In fact, we are made of the DNA of our ancestors, and for some, the experiences can be conjured in a dream state.

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Third place 3D
Neanderthal Family
Meg Grace Newell
Ceramic

You make me laugh, you get an award! The Neanderthals  made me laugh out loud!  Also, the artist got right: women also were cave painters as research has discovered.

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The gallery is open Monday-Thursday 11-5 (Closed on Thursdays in September 2019), and occasional Fridays and Saturdays 11-3. Always call 209/754-1774 before visiting to make sure we will be here.

The gallery is located at 22 North Main Street, San Andreas (we are across the street from the Calaveras Enterprise, and next door to the Calaveras Museum).