ANNUAL FRONT RANGE COMMUNITY
COLLEGE JURIED ART SHOW
NOV 28, 2020 – JAN 3, 2021
Opening Reception – Friday, DEC 11 [6-9 PM]
The Firehouse Art Center is proud to present the fourth annual juried student show from Front Range Community College’s Boulder County Campus in Longmont.
The show is a continuation of an academic goal set by John Cross, Lead Faculty for the art program, and the Firehouse’s commitment to educational and professional opportunities for emerging artists and students. Students experience the challenges and joys of presenting their work professionally, from documenting their pieces to professional framing. This year, as students have been unable to meet for classes on campus, the show provides what for many is the first opportunity to see their classmates’ recent work in person.
The show is a competitive entry open to all art students from Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Summer 2020, and the current semester. Prizes are arranged in categories: 3D Design, Drawing, Photo, and Painting. There will also be a Best of Show prize and a VP Purchase award, in which the college purchases work for its permanent collection.
“Since March our students have been making art in isolation away from their peers, their instructors, and the familiar classroom art studios. They have been asked to carve out space in their homes and convert that space into a private studio. They have been learning the skills, techniques, and concepts of art from watching videos and attending remote classes. Our students have endured the financial, physical, and mental stresses of the pandemic with self-discipline, hard work, and dedication to their craft.
I am honored to be involved in their education and humbled by their willingness to push through the obstacles they have been presented with. As such, it is my greatest pleasure to present them this opportunity to display their work in the professional environment of the Firehouse Art Center. I would also like to thank the leadership of the gallery for their generosity in offering the space to our students.”
– John Cross
Cross recruited Denver art critic, writer and curator Michael Paglia as juror.
Paglia writes, in a message to students: “The language of the art world is the art show. For young artists, the first stepping stone is a juried student show, like this one.
“I understand that it takes courage to put yourself out there and to display your creations in public. Plus, with a juried show, you need to submit your work to an “expert”, in this case me, who will then be passing judgement over something that you have lovingly made. (It’s tough on me, too.) But whether or not your pieces are accepted into the show, the educational reward is great in that old tried and true practice of learning-through-experience.”
Michael Paglia Bio:
Paglia is a professional writer working as an art critic. During his over twenty-five-year-long writing career, he has focused on the art and architecture of the American West, and has gained specialized knowledge of the art scene in Colorado. His columns have appeared in Westword, a Denver weekly, since 1995. Paglia also reviewed the work of hundreds of artists.
In addition, since the 1990s, Paglia has been an author or co-author of more than a dozen monographs and books on art, artists and architecture. Additionally, Paglia has contributed to topical books on architecture and art such Denver the Modern City; The Mid-Century Modern House in Denver; Landscapes of Colorado: Mountains and Plains; Colorado Abstract: Paintings and Sculpture; Texas Abstract: Modern + Contemporary.
In 2016, Paglia curated the exhibition Colorado Women in Abstraction presented at the MSU Center for Visual Art. In 2018, Paglia curated New Regionalisms: Contemporary Art in the Western States at the McNichols Civic Center Building. In 2020, he was co-curator of Lavender Mist, likewise at the McNichols. He has also frequently served as a juror for exhibitions, most recently for Spot On in 2020, at D’Art Gallery.
Born in Philadelphia, Paglia has lived in Colorado since he was a child, attending the University of Colorado at Boulder where he earned both a B.A. and an M.A. Paglia taught at the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design and is periodically a lecturer in art history at the University of Colorado Denver.
Paglia is a past recipient of a Society of Professional Journalists Award, and of the prestigious DAM Key Award from the Denver Art Museum for his contributions to the Colorado art world.
