Art Alliance's annual show features 80 artists

CHAMBERSBURG – The Franklin County Art Alliance announces its 45th Annual Exhibition beginning 2-5 p.m. on Sunday, June 5, with a tea and opening reception and continuing from 2-7 p.m. Monday through Thursday, June 6-9.

More than 300 paintings, photographs, prints and sculptures by more than 80 area artists will be displayed at Calvary United Methodist Church, 150 Norlo Drive, Fayetteville.

The exhibition’s award ceremony, with more than $1000 worth of awards to be presented, will be held at 3 pm on Sunday, June 5. The largest art exhibition to be held annually in Franklin County, the Art Alliance show will feature watercolors, oils, pastels, prints, drawings, photographs and sculpture.

"We have 305 entries this year," said exhibit Chair Anne Finucane, in a press release announcing the event, "and have received entries from five of Franklin County’s high schools. We so enjoy having the students’ artwork to complement that of the adult members."

Door prizes will be awarded throughout the show consisting of works of art by Alliance members, including last year’s Best of Show winner, Shippensburg artist Kent Roberts. Judges for the show will be Michael Mendez and Rhonda Smith.

A graduate of The Corcoran School of Art  and the University of Colorado, Mendez has been an adjunct instructor at Shepherd University in West Virginia since 1997. He has also taught at the University of Colorado, and the Duke Ellington School of Art in Washington, DC. In addition to serving as curator for the Franklin Center for the Creative Arts Gallery in Shepherdstown, Mendez teaches classes in photography, art history, and visual thinking. A member of the Blue Elephant Art Center in Frederick, Maryland, from 1997 through 2007, his work has been included in group shows nationwide, and in solo exhibitions in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Colorado and Washington, DC, and most recently, at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. He has won the Governor’s Award and Award of Excellence at the Biennial West Virginia Juried Exhibition; Best of Show at the Delaplaine Art Center in Frederick, Maryland, and the Juror’s Choice award at the McLean Project for the Arts, McLean, Virginia.

Rhonda Smith is a working artist and a tenured full professor of art at Shepherd University. Chair of the Department of Contemporary Art and Theater, she has been with the university since 1987 and has coordinated the BFA programs in both painting and printmaking, as well as serving as curator for the University’s Creative Art Center Gallery. Smith earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky, and her master of fine arts degree from the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. She has exhibited her work regionally and nationally, with solo shows at the Washington County Arts Council Gallery in Hagerstown, Maryland, an exhibit in conjunction with the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown and one-person exhibits at West Virginia State College in Charleston.She has traveled extensively in Europe, Africa, China, Peru, India and the United States. Her travel and interest in other cultures and traditions are often reflected in her work.

The public is welcome to attend. For more information, call 717-816-7568.