Open Juried Exhibition opens to full house, artists share insights

In what has been the most successful Southeast Open Juried Exhibit to date with entries so numerous, totalling 150, the Steinbach Arts Council had to stop submissions early this year.

“It’s the biggest exhibit ever. I don’t know (why we had so many submissions). I can’t tell you. There was such amazing enthusiasm and interest in submitting pieces. A good and a bad for us was we actually had to close applications. We had too many pieces we couldn’t put them anywhere. It’s an exciting time for us. We’re growing and we’re on the radar for many people who want to participate,” said SAC executive director David Klassen.

One of those people was Lori Hiebert who won first place for her stained glass piece titled Koi Pond.

“It’s amazing. I love that people can appreciate the stained glass and it kind of makes (me think), ‘You know what? Maybe I know what I’m doing and I’m learning as I go, and I love the fact that people can appreciate what I have.’ It’s amazing.”

Hiebert has been an artist for 12 years having been a painter before moving on to stained glass two years ago. She said she loved the medium and the way the light hits the glass is so beautiful. Her love of Japanese culture gave her the idea to do a koi pond and all the colours that come out of that pond.

“I wanted to make a piece that brought those colours together, and made a tranquil piece that I can sit and imagine I’m sitting next to this beautiful pond in Japan and watching the fish and maybe sitting under a cherry blossom tree.”

Hiebert said the arts scene in Steinbach is very much alive and SOJE is a good example of that.

“The amount of art, the amount of mediums, the amazing spread of ideas and creativity here is amazing…It’s fascinating to see people’s creativity and where it takes them and what they use to create art. It’s really, really cool.”

What’s also cool is 17-year-old Grunthal artist Laura Yellowback whose modern painting of a woman’s head won top prize in the youth category.

“I was doing an art project in my art class in Grunthal and I was doing vaporwave, which is a form of mixed media, and I was supposed to do a panting off of that, so I picked an image and I basically did eye to eye painting,” said the inspiring teen.

“I don’t think I’ve ever really used bright colours like those (in the painting). I thought it would be a different experience and I thought it would be fun to work with,” she noted.

Yellowback finds inspiration from all forms of art and is interested in sketching. She prefers still life but also loves to sketch people’s faces, which is what drew her to the image of the woman. Her painting took a month to complete with Yellowback taking two hours every day to paint the image.

She said the art scene for young people could do with some more interest but that her peers’ art projects are “pretty good.”

She plans on studying fine art in university.

Someone who is new to SOJE is John Schellenberg, who first made an entry last year. He submitted his fall painting of Stanley Park in Vancouver to this year’s exhibit.

“One of the biggest things is that it represents a fall picture of pure beauty and relaxation and almost breathing the fresh ocean air,” he said.

Schellenberg called SOJE “enchanting.”

“I absolutely love it…The kind of things they’ve done with their artwork is just fantastic. I could probably hang them up for a year and still admire new things about them and maybe emulate some details and try some new tricks. It’s absolutely enchanting to do art and art is like music. You’re constantly evolving.”

Schellenberg has been an artist since the age of six or eight. He loves to sketch and said he came back to painting when he retired.

“For many years I didn’t do anything. University takes a toll on you and so does professional work. Subsequently, now I’ve become quite attune to art and I see beautiful things in art and of course I try and reproduce them sometimes, magnify them, change them a little. One of the beauties of it is that you don’t have to be perfect you can be yourself and still take a lot of satisfaction out of your work.”