2010 Art Award Winners

The Library received 36 submissions for the 2010 art award contest. Students were asked to respond to any work of art in the Library's internationally recognized collection. The responses were varied and included poems, essays, digital art, paintings, photographs, sculptures, and musical compositions. Judges looked for works that were not only inventive but also reflected a strong interpretation of a work of art in the library.

Undergraduate Winner

Hyoeun Kim's scratch boards, Orchard; Kept in My Light Bulb were inspired by Jim Lee's Receding Orchard. Kim's inventive, skillful use of scratch tools and ink pens, coupled with an environmental message, produced a powerful response.

Undergraduate Honorable Mention

Christina Squitieri's poem Into the Skylight was in response to Maria Hartman's painting Skylight. Squitieri's poem is wonderfully imaginative, beautifully written, thoughtful interpretation of a challenging abstract work of art.

Into the Skylight

The woman sighs from her bed.

Footprints soft as ghostshine,
A voyeur paints the smell of coffee grounds
With the texture of dahlias;
Palate knife flecks pale 
As the teeth in your mouth
Glimmer like marzipan
   In the early air.

Limbering into the skylight,
Her curves wiry as cello strings,
She gives only the frown
Of a drooping bedsheet
& depth of blinkless eyes. The 
Painter yawns a smile

Thumb strumming her hips
Soft 
As an open window
		  Or a brush in worn hands'
Hands that long to play corporal music'
	  But dawn is rising,
And the sun gives her Icarian wings.

The woman's arms stretch, sing,
   As October shadows choir behind her
Sewing coughs &
A sipped cup of tea
Into the ochre reflection of glass.

The artist
Watches, eyes calm, 
Painting lisps
With a sprig of her hair.


-Christina Squitieri, Jan 2010

Inspired by Maria Hartmann's Skylight (2000)

Graduate Winner

There was a split decision in the graduate student category. Both works are in response to William Kentridge's Dancing Couple.

Timothy Hospodar and Chloe Bass's video titled Dancing Couple Over Time is a very creative response with marvelous subtle touches.

David Friedman's sculptured cowhide rug titled Wedding is highly inventive. The color and technique reflects a thoughtful response to the Kentridge print.

Graduate Honorable Mention

Fran Agnone's song is remarkable for its lyrical beauty and expressive musical performance which evokes the laborious work on a farm. Her song was in response to Xu Bing's Vegetable Fields.

Farmland
						
Audio:


        


Lyrics:

You are just a farmland
Tended by the hand of man (2x)

And the dirt is sown by hand and stone
And the dirt is sown by plow and ox
And the dirt is sown by machine and gasoline

You are just a farmland
Tended by the hand of man (2x)

And the roots take hold once the seeds germinate
And the Earth gives the dirt just the right taste
And if weather and farmer cooperate this field will grow

This bloom is not a bloom, this mist not a mist  (3x)

Your are just a farmland
Tended by the hand of man (2x)

And the Earth does give what it receives 
And let Man see, what man sees