"Art Under Review" Regional High School Exhibition Judge

The head art teacher for the Sioux City Community School District reached out to me last year and asked if we would be willing to host a competitive art show in Morningside’s Eppley Art Gallery for three regional high schools’ artists: North, East, and West High Schools. Each high school’s art teacher would select the entries, and then I was asked to judge the pieces and award prizes as well as provide a critique of the artwork for the students.

I enthusiastically agreed! The show, Art Under Review, has been on exhibition in Eppley Art Gallery from the beginning of the spring semester on January 10. I will be announcing awards and critique feedback on January 31. The visiting student artists will also get to attend an art workshop and take a campus tour. The show will continue through February 2, 2024.

An Obvara Raku Workshop!

After asking about it repeatedly for three years, I successfully convinced the lovely folks over at Dakota Potters Supply to allow us to do an obvara raku workshop on October 21, 2023! Obvara is a low-fire scalding-and-sealing process wherein you create a fermented sourdough/beer bath, plunge approximately 980°C naked ceramics fresh out of the kiln into it, wait for them to start to bloom with different tan-to-brown markings, and then arrest the surface carbonization process by rinsing the pieces off in a water bath. Obvara has an even higher chance of cracking due to the extreme thermal shocks involved than non-bath raku processes.

Getting the chance to do raku is relatively rare, and many ceramists haven’t even heard of obvara, let alone had the opportunity to do it - so I’m really grateful for the experience! Joining me on the trip were Morningside faculty Paul Adamson, alumni Calissa Hanson and Deb Murakami, and students Laura Greene, Taylor Greene, and Lauren Hedlund.

In addition, I learned about honey raku from a ceramist at this year’s ArtSplash festival - it’s basically like horsehair, feather, or sugar raku surface carbonization, but with honey! I brought some along and we tried it out too - though I want to experiment with it some more at future workshops as I was so excited about the obvara opportunity that I only kept one textured plate aside for honey raku.

Here are some photos from the workshop itself, soon to be followed by pictures of my finished pieces! I applied for and was granted funding from our Faculty Development Committee to help with my costs, so I made and brought 18 pieces along this go-round - both to make up for any thermal shock victims, and because I didn’t need to apply glaze to my obvara or honey raku ceramics so I could get more processed compared to when I need to apply 1-8 layers of glaze to each piece on-site before firing (for crackle and copper glazes or ferric chloride dips). If you’ve been following my raku workshop production, 18 is about double the number of ceramics I typically aim to bring.

2023 Annals of Iowa Cover Art Contest Winner!

I was chosen as a 2023 Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs' Annals of Iowa cover art contest winner! Annals of Iowa is a quarterly journal from the State Historical Society of Iowa. Mine is the Summer 2023 edition, which is Volume 82, Number 3.

This is a competitive opportunity facilitated through the Iowa Arts Council. The cover artist not only has their artwork reproduced on the cover, but also writes an artist statement that “speaks to the artist's overall work, in addition to specifically referencing the featured work and its connection to Iowa history” which serves as the introduction to that editions’ contents.

“Founded in 1863, the Annals examines the deeds, misdeeds, and accomplishments of our predecessors and shows how those actions fit into the larger mosaic of Iowa's history. It is distributed to hundreds of subscribers throughout the United States and Canada, and its digital footprint is even larger, with with over 3.1 million downloads from readers throughout the globe, including over 850,000 downloads in 2022 (State Historical Society of Iowa).”

The digital issues are published online after a year, presumably to encourage subscription and/or individual volume purchases for more timely consumption. Below are a couple of photos of my print volume for now, and then next year I should be able to share the full digital version!

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If you’d like to read my artist statement now, I’ve reproduced it here for you:

I am an interdisciplinary artist combining science and a wide range of art disciplines to examine the human role in shaping an ecological balance and encourage a more connected and conservation-focused approach.  I served as the artist in residence at Whiterock Conservancy, located outside of Coon Rapids, IA, for a couple of weeks in the summer of 2021.  While there, I began (and continued to work on post-residency) a body of work including painted reliefs, ceramics, and chromatograms.  For my series Literal Landscapes: Whiterock Conservancy, I explored and documented this 5,500-acre non-profit land trust through ecosystem samples I collected – including plants, fungi, soils, ash, minerals, and water – and ground up into a slurry with denatured alcohol in a mortar and pestle.  I then "printed" a variety of blends from different Whiterock locations onto filter paper using chromatography.  

Chromatography is a technique for separating out the individual components of a mixture.  For example, let’s imagine you have two different black inks.  In the first, the black was created through mixture of red, yellow, and blue pigments, while the second uses only a true black pigment.  If you made chromatograms with each of these black inks, in the first you would begin with black ink but end up with individual red, yellow, and blue sections; in the second you would start and end with black.

Each of my Whiterock chromatograms looks like an abstracted landscape and is literally composed from the landscape.  They contain organic and inorganic pigment layers including chlorophyll A and B, carotenoids, anthocyanins, flavonoids, and metal oxides and hydroxides.  This issue’s cover artwork’s ecosystem samples came from Whiterock’s Middle Raccoon River beach and Fig Avenue.  The bottom of the piece beautifully displays the native blue clay and capillary action trails which reference Whiterock’s riparian habitats, while the top evokes prairie and oak savanna.  Fittingly, Whiterock Conservancy is restoring one of the largest areas of native oak savanna remaining in Iowa.

Over time and exposure to sunlight, the less stable plant pigments in these chromatograms (the greens, blues, purples, and reds) degrade, while the more stable colors (the yellows, browns, and blacks) remain; my Literal Landscapes become more and more sepia as they age.  To me, this is a reminder that our natural world is vibrant but vulnerable, and that we should relish what we have while stepping up our interventions to improve our ecological balance for future generations… or the living earth around us will continue to dull.

Shelby Prindaville

Literal Landscapes: Whiterock Conservancy 12 - Beach and Fig Ave, 2021, mixed media chromatogram

A Reminder to Check Out the SCAC's 34th Annual Youth Art Month Exhibition

The opening reception and awards ceremony of the Sioux City Art Center’s 34th Annual Youth Art Month Exhibition was great! I enjoyed getting to meet some of the artists and seeing their family and friends celebrate their accomplishments. If you’re in the area and haven’t yet checked it out, it is open through April 9, 2023.

Here’s some local press coverage which also highlights my role as the juror:

• The Le Mars Daily Sentinel published “Local Students Exhibit in Juried Art Show” on March 17, 2023.

• The Sioux City Journal published “Youth Art Exhibit Highlights Talent of Middle School Students” on March 12, 2023.

• KSCJ published “Youth Art Exhibition Opens at SC Art Center” including an embedded radio interview with education coordinator Kim Albracht on February 24, 2023.

• The Sioux City Journal’s Weekender published “Sux 6: The Best Things to Do in Siouxland” highlighting the show as #3 Artistic Life: The Early Years on February 23, 2023.

My juror statement, printed in the show brochure:

It was a pleasure to jury the Sioux City Art Center's 34th Annual Youth Art Month Exhibition. Making artwork is a hallmark of the human experience; it is personal expression through creative risk-taking and problem-solving. Youth arts education has been linked to students' increased civic engagement, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, innovation, interdisciplinary synthesis, and motor skills. As viewers, I hope that - as I did - you see pieces in this show that bring you joy, challenge you, expand your horizons, and teach you something new.

To the artists: thank you for sharing your time and talent! Whether your work made it into this show or not, please continue to create and share your art; every piece has its own voice and power. In fact, the quality of submissions was so high that it was very hard to narrow them down to the pieces I eventually selected for display. I prioritized choosing a diversity of subject matter, art media, and techniques in 2D, relief, and 3D. I'm very excited to see the exhibition professionally installed, and I hope you are too!

I'm a Moral Leadership in Nontraditional Spaces Panelist at NC State University!

I was generously invited to fly out this week to NC State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, to serve as a Moral Leadership in Nontraditional Spaces panelist for their Honors Village and Forum.

They believe that my interdisciplinary, ecologically-focused artwork and professional practices embody moral leadership, but that many people don’t necessarily think of people like me first when conceptualizing or discussing moral leadership - hence the “nontraditional spaces.” I’m excited to see where our discussions and Q&A take us!

The dates I was asked to attend just happened to line up with Morningside’s spring break, so while all the panel activities are happening today (Monday, March 6th), I’ll also be a guest participant in an honors philosophy course later on in the week and plan to explore Raleigh, too, before returning home!

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An advert from NC State University promoting Shelby Prindaville’s Moral Leadership in Nontraditional Spaces Panel held for their Honors Village and Forum

Jurying the SCAC's 34th Annual Youth Art Month Exhibition

I was asked to jury the Sioux City Art Center’s 34th Annual Youth Art Month Exhibition. Serving as a juror or judge is always an honor, and I love getting to see what young artists are creating! I judged the entries a couple of day ago, and I look forward to the awards ceremony next month.

From the Sioux City Art Center: “Celebrating Youth Art Month, the Sioux City Art Center will feature its 34th Annual Youth Art Month Exhibition from February 26 – April 9, 2023. This year’s exhibition features work by middle school students and is juried by Morningside University professor Shelby Prindaville. Youth Art Month is an annual, nation-wide observance celebrating art education for children and encourages public support for quality school art programs. Created in 1961, YAM began as Children’s Art Month for the purpose of emphasizing the value of all children participating in art.

The reception for Youth Art Month will be on Sunday, February 26, 2023, from 1:30 – 3:00pm. Presentation of awards will take place at 2:00pm.”

My Second Inside Mside Podcast of the Year!

You might remember that I sat down to record an Inside Mside Podcast (episode 16) earlier this fall. I’ve recently joined another (episode 28) with my fellow honorees Dr. Kim Christopherson and Dr. Tom Paulsen to discuss our winning the 2022 Sharon Walker Faculty Excellence Awards.

You can watch or listen to this latest episode on YouTube here, or in the embedded video down below!

I'm a Sharon Walker Faculty Excellence Award Winner!

I’m thrilled to share that I am a 2022 Sharon Walker Faculty Excellence Award honoree!

From Morningside University: “Thanks to the continued generosity and love for Morningside shared by Jim and Sharon Walker ‘70, three faculty members were honored with a Sharon Walker Faculty Excellence Award. The 2022 honorees are Dr. Kim Christopherson, educational technologist and a professor in the Sharon Walker School of Education; Dr. Tom Paulsen, a professor and department head for the Regina Roth Applied Ag and Food Studies program; and Shelby Prindaville, art department chair, director of the art galleries, and associate professor in the School of Visual & Performing Arts.

Established in 2003, recipients for the Sharon Walker Faculty Excellence Awards are selected from a field of applicants by a panel of three outside evaluators. Each receive a $10,000 honorarium and $2,000 to use for faculty development. Several themes guide the Sharon Walker Faculty Excellence Awards process:

• The committee firmly believes that there must be a holistic approach to examining the criteria (teaching, scholarship, advising, and service) and no single item should be seen in opposition to another. Indeed, effective teaching is enhanced by quality advising, active scholarship, and dedicated service to the university.

• These awards are meant to celebrate Morningside University’s extraordinary faculty by recognizing up to three exemplary recipients each year.

• The committee takes its charge from the President and the donors very seriously and recognizes the difficulty of the selection process.”

The application requires a minimum of seven letter of recommendation writers, and I am really grateful for all of my letter writers’ time and support! I’m very happy both personally and because this is the first time anyone in the art department has received this honor, which feels like important representation.

I Earned Tenure at Morningside University!

I am extremely happy and honored to announce that I have earned tenure at Morningside University. I came in on a shortened tenure clock due to having already earned tenure and promotion at my previous institution, so this news comes in my third year here at Morningside University as Art Department Chair and Associate Professor of Art!

In that time - even in a pandemic - I have experienced the professionalism, academic excellence, support, and warmth of the Morningside community in an abundance of ways. I look forward to continuing my work and service as I join the ranks of the tenured Morningside faculty!

Won a Faculty Conference Travel Fund for My Next Raku Workshop!

I have another raku workshop coming up on October 16th, and it should be a fun one - we’ll be bringing 6-7 Morningside artists, including alumni, faculty, and current students. I decided to apply earlier this fall to the Morningside Faculty Development Committee Conference Travel Fund to help cover my costs for this one, since doing these regularly does add up financially. My request was approved!

2021 ArtSplash Festival Judge!

This past weekend (September 4th and 5th) was the 2021 ArtSplash festival, hosted by the Sioux City Art Center. I had previously attended the 2019 ArtSplash which was held in Riverside Park; the 2020 festival was cancelled due to the pandemic. This meant a lot of people - including myself - were really excited to attend the 2021 ArtSplash, which was relocated downtown to take place in and around the Sioux City Art Center itself. I think this was a very smart change that highlights the institution and clearly links it to the festival.

I was invited to serve as one of the two 2021 ArtSplash judges, and I was honored and excited to say yes! I visited each of the approximately 50 artist booths and looked closely at the work presented as well as spoke with the artists about their processes. My co-judge and Briar Cliff University art professor Nan Wilson and I then came together, compared our notes, and visited a number of booths again before selecting four Awards of Excellence, a Best 2D, Best 3D, and Best in Show artist.

This was my first time judging an art festival, though I have judged art shows and competitions before. In my previous judging roles, I did so solely based off of the work itself, without access to the artists until after the awards ceremony. I really enjoyed getting to speak with the artists and learning more about the work and process as a part of this ArtSplash judging. Overall, I’d say the 2021 ArtSplash was a blast, and I look forward to 2022 ArtSplash!

I'm a Sioux City Art Center Board of Trustees Member!

Back in October, I learned that the Sioux City Art Center Board of Trustees had a couple openings through a friend already on the Board - so I applied. In December, I had a virtual interview with City Council, and I recently learned that I was approved! I look forward to serving my community in this function for the next two years.

Judging the Sioux City Camera Club Print Competition

I was invited to serve as a judge for the Sioux City Camera Club’s print competition in mid-October, and it was a really fun experience! The competition was split into two parts: color, and black and white. I along with two other judges rated each entry on technical skill, composition, and interest. I was quite impressed with the quality of the submissions - we have some really talented photographers in our community! Category winners will go on to compete further on a regional level, so I’ll be interested to hear how those photos fare in upcoming competitions.

Judging-wise, I have a lot of experience in assessing artwork in terms of value, color, composition, and so on. I am also expert at Adobe Photoshop, so digital manipulation is totally in my wheelhouse. I am skilled at digital photography, but there’s more there that I’d like to learn, and in film photography I know the basics but haven’t immersed myself in that discipline since undergrad. It was interesting to see how my deep knowledge areas complemented those of the other judges and vice versa.

I'm a 2020 Mary Blair Award for Art Finalist!

I was selected as one of three Mary Blair Award for Art Finalists for this year’s Reed Magazine competition, which had a record-breaking number of applications! My work and a short artist profile will be published in Reed Magazine’s upcoming Issue 153. This well-known annual publication is “the oldest literary journal based west of the Mississippi!”

I look forward to learning who the ultimate winner of the award was and seeing my work in print!

Second Place Overall in the 24th Arts in Harmony 2019 Annual International Show

I’m happy to share that my painting Reconnaissance won Second Place Overall in the 24th Arts in Harmony 2019 Annual International Show! Arts in Harmony is a broad juried international exhibition with no discipline restrictions or show theme. As you may have read in my previous post about the show, it will continue to be viewable at the Hopkins Center for the Arts, 1111 Mainstreet, Hopkins, MN 55343, through Sunday, February 17, 2019. There are two subsequent traveling shows as well, so we’ll see if my work is selected for either or both of those once the main show ends.

Winning this award was a particularly pleasing result because for a couple weeks I thought Reconnaissance might not have even made it to the gallery space and instead ended up in a pile of undeliverable mail somewhere! For the first time ever in many years of shipping, the UPS staff member who created my shipping labels accidentally voided the first label - sending it from my address to the show pickup location - from UPS’s system when they created the prepaid return label instead of adding the prepaid return to my account as a second label. This meant that even though there was a shipping label on the box, UPS itself had no tracking ability or even any documentation at all that I had shipped a box with them, and scanners wouldn’t register system information about that label either. Luckily, the workers who handled my box’s transit must have relied on the good old-fashioned paper label with addresses in order to get it to its destination, because it clearly arrived on schedule!

Winner of the Silver Needle Press's Visual Arts Mixed Media Contest

Silver Needle Press blind juried my living interactive installation All That I See as their recent Visual Arts Mixed Media Contest Winner! Here’s the award page for my piece, and here’s the full contest winners page (they have different categories of awards including fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction, so pressing Ctrl-F and typing either my name in or “Visual Art Contest Winners” may help). The award comes with a small cash prize and consideration for publication in their Spring 2019 issue.

Honorable Mention at the LCAA Holiday Art Gala 2018

Juror Cathy Kline awarded my painting Camelflage with an Honorable Mention at this year’s Leavenworth County Artists Association Holiday Art Gala. I had a nice time attending the reception and awards ceremony, although it was the same evening as USM’s Fall 2018 Student Art Exhibition opening reception so it was a busy, art-filled night!

Honorable Mention at Prairie Village Arts Council's State of the Arts 2018

This was a nice surprise - my sculpture Albrechare won an Honorable Mention award (and cash prize) at the State of the Arts 2018 exhibition juried by Marissa Starke!

If you’d like to go see the show and the full cast of award winners, the exhibition is in the R. G. Endres Gallery located in the municipal building at 7700 Mission Road, Prairie Village, KS.  The exhibition runs annually during the month of October. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

Confluence of Expression's Wildlife Exhibition held at Green Door Art Gallery

My painting City Solstice has been awarded Honorable Mention at Confluence Art Gallery's 2017 Wildlife Arts and Photography Exhibition.  For this juried show, there were 121 artworks submitted for consideration by 79 artists. Jurors Lisa Ober and Dana Holm selected 56 artworks by 31 artists for the online exhibition, and selected 18 artworks including my own for awards and inclusion in the Green Door Art Gallery exhibition outside of St. Louis.

Green Door Art Gallery is in Webster Groves, MO.  The exhibition is open Wednesday-Sunday 10am-5pm from November 8 through December 30, 2017.  For more information, please call (314) 325-6130.

Second Place in Water Media in the IAA's 16th National Animal Art Juried Competition

My painting Perspective won second place in the Water Media category at the Irving Art Association's 2017 16th National Animal Art Juried Competition with juror Patsy Lindamood!  I wrote about being juried into the show here, and if you're near Irving, Texas, in the next few days you can still catch it - the exhibition will be up through September 29th.