Menu

Call or Text 407-500-7427 | Serving Orlando & Tampa
DeLand artist takes Best of Show at Mount Dora Arts Festival

DeLand artist takes Best of Show at Mount Dora Arts Festival

by DeVore Design, February 7, 2017

The 42nd annual Mount Dora Arts Festival had it all — perfect weather, no problems and good art.

“It’s one of the best collection of artists we have had in the show,” said Beth Miller, gallery and volunteer coordinator of the Mount Dora Center for the Arts, which stages Mount Dora’s signature show held Saturday and Sunday.

Sculptor Jack Hill of DeLand took home the Best of Show award, and a $5,000 prize, for “Abacus Aleppo,” in which tiny skulls serve as beads on a black and red abacus.

“I am getting into found objects and I found this old abacus at a flea market,” he said. “I had a little skull and the idea combined in my head. I made 77 more little skulls. What had been going to be called ‘Devil’s Abacus’ changed into ‘Abacus Aleppo.’ I like art that stimulates people’s thinking.”

 The judges also commented on the high quality of the art.  They were Annalies Mondi, deputy director of the Georgia Museum of Art in Athens, Ga.; Rachel Frisby, curator at the Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Gardens in Winter Park; and Patrick Moser, professor of studio art at Flagler College in St. Augustine.

“We saw a combination of refined tradition approaches and contemporary exploration,” they wrote in their statement.

Mondi, Frisby and Moser awarded the $2,500 Judge’s Choice in two-dimensions to painter of realistic still lifes, Yu Zhou of Yardley, Pa., and the $2,500 three-dimensional award to clay artist Fong Choo  of Louisville, Ky., who is renowned for his teapots.

Ed Brownlee of Kalamazoo, Mich., won the $250 Wendy Alderman award for most creative use of the medium for his brightly colored functional stoneware.

Awards of Excellence in two-dimensional art went to mixed media artist John Whipple of Winter Park; painter Charles Gatewood of Phenix City, Ala.; digital artist Ed Myers of Lake Mary; printmaker Chelsea Smith of Casselberry; photographer Igor Menaker of Grayslake, Ill.; printmaker Collin Margerum of Winter Springs; mixed-media artist Kate Tillman of Lakeville, Ind.; painter Xiao Jiang of Ontario, Canada; printmaker Marjorie Bowers of Lilburn, Ga.; and printmaker Nicola Barsaleau of La Crosse.

Awards of Excellence the three-dimensional art went to potter Larry Adler of Leeds, Ala.; jeweler Claudia Melchiorre of Cape Canaveral; mixed-media artist Magali Cereghino Groves of Orlando; jeweler Patricia  Karnes of Winter Park; mixed-media artist Don McCullough of Kissimmee; fine-craft artists John Mascoll of Safety Harbor and Ronia Grillos of Freedom, Calif.; potter Dennis Thompson of Branson, Mo.; potter Tim Peters of Winter Haven and fine-craft artist Adrianna Rangle of New Hope, Pa.