The public is invited to attend as the jurors select entries for this year’s Whitewater Valley Art Competition (WVAC) show. Entries will be electronically juried from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Friday, September 21, in Vivian Auditorium, located in Whitewater Hall.

Peg Faimon

The WVAC is sponsored by First Bank Richmond.

Originating in 1978, the WVAC has a history of “open judging,” allowing the public to be present when the exhibit entries are accepted or declined for the exhibit. In this spirit, digital images of entered works will be projected for the audience in Vivian Auditorium as the jurors make their selections. There will be intervals in the judging for the public to interact with the panel with regard to rationale related to acceptance or declination of works.

Becky Stirratt

This year’s competition will be juried by Peg Faimon, founding dean at the School of Art, Architecture, and Design, IU Bloomington; Betsy Stirratt, founding director of the Grunwald Gallery of Art at IU Bloomington; and Maxim Weintraub, gallery director, Herron School of Art and Design at IUPUI.

Peg Faimon received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Indiana University and her Master of Fine Arts from Yale University, earning the Norman Ives Memorial Award. She started teaching at Miami University in 1991, where she later served as the chair of the Department of

Maxim Weintraub

Art and Professor of Graphic Design. At Miami, she also held positions as the co-director of the Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies (AIMS), founding director of the Miami Design Collaborative (MDC), and lead faculty of the graphic design program. In July of 2016, she moved to Indiana University Bloomington to become the founding dean of the newly formed School of Art + Design in the

College of Arts and Sciences.

Betsy Stirratt is the founding director of the Grunwald Gallery of Art at Indiana University in Bloomington. As director, she has curated numerous exhibitions including “Personal: Selections from the Robert J. Shiffler Collection,” and “Human Nature.” She has been exhibiting her paintings, books, objects and installations since 1983. Her work has been exhibited widely, including the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington; White Columns and Art in General, New York; The Mütter Museum, Philadelphia; among others. She is the recipient of several grants, including a Visual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and awards from the Indiana Arts Commission and the American Craft Council.

Max Weintraub is director of the art galleries at the Herron School of Art and Design. Weintraub has a Ph.D. in modern and contemporary art from Bryn Mawr College. He has worked in curatorial and educational departments at the Denver Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.

Accepted entries and top awards will be announced at an artists reception from 6-8 p.m. on Friday, October 12, in the Tom Thomas Gallery, located in Whitewater Hall.

The Whitewater Valley Art Competition exhibit will be open from October 12, after the reception, through December 7 in the Tom Thomas Gallery and Meijer Artway.