Prof's Artwork Gets Top Award

"Madonna of the Great Wave: Import/Export," by Barbara Fast of EMU, won the "best in show" award at VMRC's annual juried art exhibit.

The "best in show" award at the annual Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community (VMRC) Juried Art Exhibit went to Barbara P. Fast, associate professor of art at Eastern Mennonite University.

Fast's piece, "Madonna of the Great Wave: Import/Export," was created from handmade paper, cut-outs, paint and objects and is one of three in a series that comments on what society worships, thus the icons.

"The piece is symbolic of how we’re awash with Asian goods," said Hollyn Chase of Redding, Calif., daughter of the exhibit's director. "We’ve closed our own businesses and stopped making our own products because we worship at the altar of cheap goods."

From a distance, the work looks like an Italian mother-and-child painting. But a closer inspection reveals the Madonna is wearing her hair in a Japanese coif with comb, and she's holding an Oriental fan. In the foreground is a tsaunami-size wave.

"Fast’s work has a wonderful richness to it — textures, colors – and a sense of completeness," said Robert Stuart of Staunton, Va., one of the show’s three jurors. "It is very well done as far as technique goes, and it has a strong vision implied."

Stuart said he was "impressed with the overall high quality of the show’s work."

The 101 works of art in the exhibit represent a vast range in media and subject, from portraits to blown glass, landscapes to metal sculpture, woodwork and more. The 2006 exhibition may be, in the words of one visitor, "the most prestigious show in the Shenandoah Valley."

The exhibit opened June 4 and runs through July 4.

The juried show began three years ago to help celebrate VMRC’s 50th anniversary. It was so successful that it has become an annual event.

Viewing hours are 10 a.m.-7 p.m. weekdays and 1-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

— article by: Jim Bishop; posted June 14, 2006