The opening for the Gadsden Art Association’s 54th Annual Juried Show was Sunday, July 15th from 2 -4. Since that’s right in the middle of the boys’ nap time, I left my husband, Steve, at home with them and took my friend, Heather Bond, with me on the 1.5 hour trek down to Gadsden. We had never been to the Gadsden Museum of Art, and we were pleasantly surprised. It’s in a neat old building with 3 floors, cool architectural details, and exposed brick walls. It’s nicely lighted too.
It started raining as we neared the museum. I figured that was a bad sign. We go in and sign in, get my name tag, and they are out of clips. Bad sign number two? Then I notice that the judge for the awards was Glenn Dasher, one of my art professors from University of Alabama in Huntsville. Maybe things were looking up? We see the schedule of events and we’ve already missed the awards. No matter, I’m sure I didn’t win anything. We wander the first floor and everything’s very nice. We head up to the second floor. Again, everything was displayed nicely. Up to the third floor we go. We finally find my piece, on the backside of one of the freestanding display walls. There were at least other pieces there though.
We head back to the second floor to get some snacks and I run into Glenn. He was brave enough to come for the opening. It was nice to see a familiar face and great to catch up a bit. And then as we’re standing there chatting, someone takes the microphone and says they’re going to finally give the awards. Surprise! They ‘re not following their schedule. And for the first time ever, they have the checks to hand out as you come up. I had no idea how many different categories there were. They gave 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, plus at least one honorable mention in 8 different categories. They gave a total of $2600 in awards. I was totally surprised when they called my name for 3rd place in mixed media. And the announcer mentioned that “Happy” was on the back of the program, which I hadn’t picked up. But just to keep things interesting, they couldn’t find the check. They did find it before we headed back home.
I don’t know how many total entries they had, but there are 63 different artists represented in the show, several from out of state. The Gadsden Museum of Art is located at 515 Broad Street. Their hours are Monday – Saturday: 10 AM – 4 PM and the first Friday of the month also from 4 – 8 PM.
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