"This show gives MTSU students the opportunity to engage in the process of submitting and showing their work in a public space, as well as competing with other artists for awards," said SAA faculty advisor John Donovan. "This process is an essential component to the professional practice of being an artist and is a valuable experience for our students."

The exhibit will be on display in the Todd Art Gallery from September 22 to October 1 with a reception and awards ceremony the afternoon of Thursday, September 24. The event is free and the public is welcome.

I thank the students and faculty of MTSU's Art Department for allowing me the honor of jurying this exhibition.

Artists are involved in an activity that should illicit close inspection by the viewer, making them want to take enough time to look intently, to know something new. Yet most selection processes for professional exhibitions rarely afford the juror or curator such an opportunity. Judgments of art are made literally and conceptually from a distance, through varying qualities of digital formatting. For this reason my selection and editing of the students' exhibition at MTSU should be understood as an imperfect process. It's possible I missed a good work of art, or included something that wouldn't hold up to my personal inspection. In that way this exhibition is very much like every juried exhibition you will ever experience. Take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Still, this is the reality of the art world, so it's important that professionals and professionals to-be present their creative efforts and intentions as clearly as possible. I inspected and questioned what I was offered. I tried my best to see the "bones" of formal design beneath most everything else that the artist was attempting to say. I believe the basic stuff of design is still essential to quality works of art. I also looked for a balance of effort that was in-tune with intent. Not every work of art needs to be labored over incessantly. Some works that I edited out of the show were amazing feats of patience and elbow grease that unfortunately obscured a worthy intent, or seemed only to offer technical facility, a means to no end. Other works attracted me because they carried their ideas so effortlessly that I had the sensation of; "Of course!"

Given the stack of digital images I reviewed, I was impressed by how much I felt needed to be included in the show. There was risk-taking, pleasing combinations of (I thought) incompatible forms and themes that describe our contemporary moment. I think this is all healthy stuff that confirms my opinion that MTSU has a good group of students and a generous/committed art faculty.

Best regards to you all,

Professor Brent Oglesbee

Head, Department of Art, WKU