@ Shaker Library
Twenty years ago, with seed money
from Friends of the Shaker Library, the
Library established an art fund for a
juried art competition. The idea was
to honor the late Barbara Luton on
her retirement as director, to provide a
vehicle for local artists to display and
sell their work, and to enhance the
Library’s walls with the art selected as
Best of Show. More important, it was a
way for the Library to engage the local
artist community.
The Library will celebrate the 20th
Barbara Luton Art Competition on
Sunday, March 31. Anna Arnold, director
of the Florence O’Donnell Wasmer Gallery
at Ursuline College, will jury the show.
When the competition began in
1998, the Library worked with artist Ruby
Doss Fett and renowned Ohio artist, the
late Elise Newman, in developing the
competition’s criteria: the Best of Show,
a purchase prize by the Library not to
exceed $1,000, and cash prizes for first,
second, and third places. Artists had to be
at least 18 years old. Artwork had to be
two-dimensional, appropriately framed,
and ready for hanging. In addition, artists
would agree to donate a small percentage
of the sale of their art to the Library
Endowment Fund.
Once the criteria were established,
the Library sought established artists
to jury its first show. Newman and
Trudy Wiesenberger, who worked as an
instructor at the Cleveland Museum of
Art and who established the University
Hospitals Gallery, happily agreed to
help. The two women served as the first
Barbara Luton Art Competition jurors and
selected Gary Williams’ multimedia art
“Tishauna 7.1” as Best of Show.
Since that first show, the Barbara
Luton Art Competition has been juried
by esteemed men and women in the
arts, including: Stephanie Stebich, now
director of the Smithsonian American
Art Museum in Washington, D.C.; Joanne
Cohen, corporate art curator who was
20 WINTER 2019 | WWW.SHAKER.LIFE
responsible for curating the art in Cleveland Clinic buildings; Joanie Adler, retired from
Adler/Berick; Ernestine Brown of the former Malcolm Brown Gallery; Thomas Schorgl,
retired president and CEO of the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture; Deena
Epstein, retired arts program officer for The Gund Foundation; Lee Heinen, artist; Gwen
Cooper, artist; Dale Hilton, director of Teaching and Learning at The Cleveland Museum
of Art; Sue Koletsky, director of Temple Museums at The Temple-Tifereth Israel; Daniel
Levin, professor of photography; Mary Stone, artist; Ann Brown, artist; Denise Stewart,
art teacher and gallery manager; Leslie Edwards Humez, sculptor and pop surrealist;
Dan Whitely, artist and art teacher; Sally Levine, architect and artist; Deanna Clemente-
Milne, art teacher; Tanya Tate, artist; Karen DeMauro, artist and art teacher; Meryl
Haring, artist and art teacher; Tiffany Graham and Erin Guido of Land Studio.
Dan Whitely, artist and current leader at Excel TECC Studio Art & Design, says “As
an artist, I enjoyed judging the show because I appreciate all the little things that an
artist puts into a piece to create his or her own point of view. As a teacher, I believe an art
gallery, especially one in the Library, provides a space where people can quiet down and
take themselves out of context to see another point of view. Art is a referendum for the
human spirit.”
Celebrating
20 Years of
Local Art
A Work in Progress by Candace Dangerfield
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