 Hello and welcome to the Plymouth Arts Center. We're in the great room today and we are having our 15th and final student show exhibit. This exhibit culminates all the work that the artists, the students have done this past year and I have been the resident oil painting instructor here for about 18 years now. I'll be retiring next year and so we're having this one final exhibit and I do believe it is absolutely the best. And as you can see there's gorgeous artwork everywhere. We have a wonderful turnout and in a little bit we're going to be talking to a lot of the students and looking at the artwork up closer. So thank you for joining us today. I hope you enjoy the show and we'll be with you to show you and talk to you about some of the artwork very soon. This painting by Nancy Spindler is of her husband's farm where he grew up. The name of it is Winter on the Farm and it is just a glorious version of what it looks like in the countryside in the winter time. And Nancy, Nancy Spindler, I would like you to tell me how did you come to want to paint this particular piece? When my husband and I were first married we were both college students and didn't have much money. Unfortunately a child came along before we had much money and we used to spend a lot of weekends here at this farm sled riding and I painted this picture for my daughter because those are some of the happiest memories she has from childhood all the times we spent sledding here. Thank you very very much Nancy. It turned out gorgeous. I love it. Thank you. This beautiful painting it was done from life. All the beautiful fruit that we could find we put into this brass bowl and we put it on the table and Mark Montaba, the artist, painted it from life. It's one of the most gorgeous paintings and the fruit looks so delicious to me that you could taste it. Mark, what about this? For me it's the apples because the getting the right colors, the right reds in combination with the yellows have always been a real challenge for me. I find the grapes a little easier to do but the apples in particular and this particular painting anyway were a real challenge for me. Other than that I'd say that the next in line would be the pears on top. Excuse me, what did you enjoy the most? The thing I enjoyed the most I think is doing the background and the canvas I like that I guess I'm partial to the lavender and the black coloration that has really offered a sharp contrast to the colors of the fruit that were in the bowl itself and I enjoy doing grapes. For some reason they're fun to do. I just want to tell you I think this painting is one of your best. I just love it and thank you so much Mark for being my student and for being here today at our final, for our final exhibit, student exhibit. Thank you. You're very welcome. Thank you. Thank you very much Kitty. And here we are with Caroline Wheelan. She is the artist that painted the King of North Point. It's a gorgeous old-looking tree here and it's frosty and cold-looking. Caroline, whatever in the world though made you call it the King of North Point. To me he looked like an old weather tree that had been through a lot already and we're so often drawn to the lake and to me he's seen a lot and you can tell how he's weathered a lot and I think we all often feel like that ourselves too and we find refuge in coming to the lake and contemplating things and celebrating things in our lives. Well I want to tell you you did a beautiful job of capturing the feel and the and the whole essence of what you just said. It comes through loud and strong and thank you so much. Thank you. And now we're with Katie Mix and Katie is the artist that painted the Sandpiper. This lovely little painting, a still life painted from life but it's of things from the ocean and I'm going to let Katie tell you more about this. Thank you. Thank you. When we were in Florida this last winter the sandpipers were what caught my eye a lot. We had beautiful white sand beach and this is kind of what put it in my mind that I would like to do a painting of the Sandpiper and of course the seashells have always been a favorite of mine. Thank you very much Katie. You did a marvelous job on that and I love I love the composition and the little bird and it's just it's really really beautiful. Thank you. And here we are with Ruth Meyers painting of the Smith Brothers fish shanty. This is the most beautiful painting. I think the thing that I love the most about it is how she's captured the reflections in the water. It's a beautiful painting. Tell me Ruth what was it about this particular scene that made you choose to paint that as your landscape for this show? My husband is from Port Washington and and he's taken pictures in certain ways it was deteriorating and he always wanted me to paint this scene so I'm making him happy. If we don't make our husbands happy we're in deep trouble so I'm glad you did it but it's beautiful hun. You captured the feel of it beautifully. I am very proud of you. Thank you. Well here we are our artist is Laura Lines this most beautiful flowering tree in bloom. The title of the painting is along the second fairway by Laura Lines and Laura where in the world did you take this photograph where is this it's just gorgeous and the play of color of the pinks and violets against the greens that color and complement it just sends it home it's just a gorgeous painting but tell me where is it? Well spring kitty is my favorite season of the year and this was taken a photograph taken in Dork County on a small nine hole golf course in Sister Bay called Bay Ridge and we were golfing with some friends and I saw the tree and I just had to stop and take a photograph because I knew I would want to paint it. Well you did a beautiful job and thank you so much it's absolutely gorgeous and and thank you for being a student of mine for all these years and I'm sorry that this is our final show in a way it's a great turnout lots of people and lots of fun and and you you did a ride for the arts in Milwaukee this morning before you came here right how did that go? Well we have participated in the United Performing Arts Fund Ride for the Arts for about five years now and it's a fundraiser for the PAC in Milwaukee and we did a shortened version of the ride this year so we could make it back in time for the student show here but it was a good ride a little windy a little cold and slight bit of rain as we started but other than that it went quite well. Thank you very much Laura and thank you for being able to make it make it back on time. There we go now I would like the following people to come up here and stand with me. Barb Claribout, Carolyn Flash, Edie Spat, Lois Light, Lois is here with us today, Lorraine Bolt-Lemines and Sharon Porfilio. Could you please come up here? This first award that I'm about to present is an award of participation. I've come to classes they've done the work I felt that everybody in the show deserved an award this year so this is the participation award. I'm going to pass those out this is my assistant Lynn and she just got here and so she's kind of shooting from the back. All right well thank you very much. Go to the students that received a vote for their painting okay so these are not the runners up these are the students that received a vote and a vote for your painting from your peers is a very important thing it really is. So I felt that the people that had received a vote all deserved a ribbon also. Okay so I need Carol Edwards and Jenny Hughes and Penny Clefstad and Mrs. Lyle Krausey, Shirley Van Stelly, Noreen Wolfe and Kathleen Wallenberg to please step up. Now these are for receiving, you know, notice of the hard work that you put into your paintings and Mrs. Krausey's case she's accepting for her late husband who was one of the best students I have ever had in my entire 20 some years of teaching. We have the runners up so Nancy Spindler for September okay would you please step forward. For Salt River Bay US Virgin Islands Jane Coombs for Autumn Splendor on Highway FF. Fernsler for Jersey Shores at Dawn. Homestock for fishing companions at rest and now we're getting down to the last three runner-ups. Katie Mix for Caught in Castle, second runner-up, Judith Stockinger runner-up, Laura Lines for Love of Hydrangeas. Place winner is Pat Coop for Sea Lion. The second place winner for Old Time's Sake is Mark Montabaugh. We have a tie for first place between Ruth Meyer for Collectibles, Ruth for Delicate Reds and now there's just one award left and that is the best of show. Joan Schwabe. Just another day. Now my assistant will go around and put the little cards on the top winning paintings so that you can see which one's won and we still have another hour and a half to go so eat drink and be married. Okay. With the winner of Best of Show just another day a pair of old scuffed up boots by artist Joan Schwabe and she took away the top honor today for this painting and she so deserves it so deserved all of the votes that she received and I want to tell you that the votes are the students vote for their peers. It's the student's choice award so it's not like someone else came in and just said oh I like this one or I like that one. No. Her peers, her students, classmates actually voted her the best in this show and Joan I want to ask you why I mean you won Best of Show but why in the world did you pick an old pair of boots to paint? Well it represents the working people in my family and my son had asked me to do his boots and I wanted to show the boots with some character almost like the lines in your face as you grow old. These show many many hours of hard work and dedication to a job that all of my family participate in whether they're military boots, farm boots, factory boots. Well they also represent all the hard work that you put into them too. Thank you so much and congratulations honey. Wonderful job. Thank you. This portrait that I'm standing next to is a portrait of Lyle Krause one of my best students who passed away on March 17th of 2013. He was one of the best students I've ever had in all of my years of teaching and his last wish in class was to do a self-portrait. I decided to do that portrait for him because he wasn't able to and so I have hung as a memorial here some of the paintings that Lyle did throughout the years. He was an accomplished artist he always came to class ready to learn and eager to learn. He never missed unless he absolutely had to. He was a gem of a man and a gem of a student and he will never be forgotten. And so I want to thank all of you the viewers today for being with us at our final and 15th student exhibition exhibit. This is our final show. We won't be having any more because I'll be retiring. This one is the best by far and I thank you so much for being with us today and joining in. Thank you so much. This is Kitty Lynn Klisch from the Plymouth Arts Center. Great room. Thank you and bye bye for now.