Judges named awarded a total of $12,200 to participating artists at the 53rd annual Kentuck Festival of the Arts.
More than 270 artists displayed exhibits at the two-day festival, which wrapped up Sunday at Snow Hinton Park in Tuscaloosa.
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The judges scored the exhibiting artists based on quality, originality, design, composition, technique and overall presentation.
Here are the winners:
- Best in Show: Luis Gutierrez, clay
- Award of Distinction: Brenda Gordon, mixed media, and Robin Anne Cooper, mixed media
- Merit awards: Ricky Boscarino, clay; Larry Brown, wood; Mary Anna Brown, mixed media; James Conner, two-dimensional; Penny Dobson, mixed media; Nancy Eaves, jewelry; Jackie Haliburton, mixed media; Monica Iversen, two-dimensional; Carol McCrady, fiber; Lisa Norris, mixed media; Guadalupe Robinson, clay; and Tyler Voorhees, mixed media.
Judges were:
- Gilda McDaniel, the director of weddings and special events at Fearrington Village in North Carolina and co-coordinator of Fearrington Village Folk Art Show
- Teresa Hollingsworth, a folklorist who serves as the grants manager for Oxford College at Emory University in Georgia and is former director for Traditional Arts at South Arts.
The October festival is built around visual artists, craftspeople, musicians, poets and other creative types and attracts thousands of attendees each year.
The Kentuck Festival has been recognized by the Alabama Department of Tourism as one of the top 10 events to attend in Alabama. The festival has also been named “Best of Bama 2022” by Alabama Magazine, and has been named a “Local Legacy” by the United States Library of Congress. Kentuck has also been featured in Smithsonian Magazine, Southern Living, American Style Magazine and National Geographic Traveler.
The festival is organized by the Kentuck Art Center, which operates all year around, with exhibit spaces, artists’ studios, workshops, outreach programs, monthly Art Nights, a gift shop and more.
Reach Ken Roberts at[email protected].