Southern spotlight

One thousand four hundred, give or take a few.

Juror Brian Rutenberg looked at images of every painting, sculpture, drawing, photograph, print, ceramic submitted by 468 artists wanting to get into this year's Delta Exhibition, the annual prestigious show of regional art at the Arkansas Arts Center.

Sixty-five works made the final cut.

How did he do it without getting bleary-eyed staring at the computer?

South Carolina-born Rutenberg, 48, a painter known for abstracted landscapes, laughs. Sort of.

"I looked at about 100 images a day, give or take," he says. "It's exhausting. To keep my eyes fresh and to give every artist a fair shake, I spent time away from the computer in between groups of images."

The first look-see took just over two weeks.

What was Rutenberg looking for?

"The most soulful works of art, which have a strong footprint in a place, an idea ... how did this artist tell me something about the world from a personal standpoint?"

As he studied the works, Rutenberg got an overall view and, working with pen and a yellow ledger, wrote down the numbers of what he considered the strongest images (artworks in juried competitions are identified by number, rather than artist and title).

"There were many run-throughs to narrow it down. Then, after I reached 150, it became excruciating. I wanted to get as many as I could without crowding the show.

"I rely on my initial gut instinct," he says. "But it has to go beyond that. I look for a high-speed collision between the intellectual and the visceral; too much intellectual, it's academic and dry. Too much visceral without technique, it looks out of control. The pleasure of that experience is good knowledge. Balance, idea, depth of concept tells me a lot about what I think the artist sees."

Rutenberg "understands what makes artists tick, what they want to accomplish," says Todd Herman, executive director of the Arts Center. "He understands the big picture; he's not laser focused on what he does. He understands how diverse the artists are in their outlook, in the media they use and how diverse their influences are."

It wasn't until Rutenberg flew to Little Rock to make his award choices and help hang the show that he saw the art in person.

When he saw Little Rock artist David Bailin's Slippage that "high-speed collision" came over him again.

"I liked it immediately as an image on the computer; when I saw it in person, wow. It was wonderful."

Slippage won the show's top prize, the Grand Award.

"There is a heat in there, something he's desperately trying to express. There's a disorientation in the way he tilts the horizon, the desperate markings of color ... it kept me looking, it fit my visceral/intellectual collision with the right balance."

Bailin's 78-inch-by-83-inch work is a nightmarish and chaotic suburban vision conveyed with charcoal, oil, pastel and coffee on paper.

Slippage marks Bailin's latest triumph at the Delta; he has won two other Grand Awards, along with several Delta Awards and honorable mentions.

"I was thrilled and dumbstruck," Bailin says.

Rutenberg also chose the two Delta Awards, which went to Robin Tucker of Little Rock for her large acrylic painting of a sliced-in-half green bell pepper titled Grace and Faith (I Remember It All) and Jeff Sharp of Bryant for his sculpture Tread Lightly, a sculpture of an owl created from tire treads, plywood and a soap drum.

The Contemporaries' Delta Award winner was Slidell, La.-born Andrew Blanchard for his screen print on wood panel titled County Line/Urban Limit II. It also was chosen for an honorable mention by Rutenberg.

There were 17 more honorable mentions.

WHAT IS THE DELTA?

The Delta Exhibition, which includes work from Arkansas and the states that border it, is open to artists living in these states or who were born there.

"As the world gets smaller, regionalism becomes less of a finite place because we are so interconnected and images flow so freely," Herman says. "With all of that, there is still, sometimes, a viewpoint that comes from this Southern aesthetic. And you find it in this show.

"The Delta brings together artists from this region who are experiencing a similar kind of day-to-day existence," he says. "While the artists can get lots of input from images from across the globe via their devices, in their day-to-day experiences they get their Southern infusion, which seeps its way in."

Brad Cushman, a past Grand Award winner, describes the Delta as "everything but the kitchen sink."

Cushman, gallery director at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, says it gives people an idea "what's being done in the region right now."

"There's always shock and awe," says Virmarie DePoyster, a Little Rock pastel artist who won an honorable mention in 2008.

Warren Criswell of Benton has been accepted in seven Delta shows.

"It's a prestigious show for the Delta Region, for Arkansas and the Arts Center. I'm grateful to have been in the Delta so many times." Criswell has won two Delta Awards.

Bailin describes the Delta as "risky."

"There are a wide range of skill levels and talents. It can be a shocking exhibition because it's so different every year. It allows us to see what's going on in studios we wouldn't see.

"And we wonder ... 'How did that get in?' or 'There should be more of that.'"

Delita Martin, who has three exhibitions of new work hanging (including an excellent exhibit at the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas in Pine Bluff), didn't have time to enter the Delta this year, but says it "always amazes me; it's a great experience to walk through and look at the work."

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

Bailin's first Grand Award, in 1988, was a game changer. The juror, Marti Koplin, contacted Bailin and signed him to the Koplin Del Rio Gallery in Culver City, Calif.

"Thanks to the Delta and Koplin, I gained gallery representation." That launched what has become a successful art career for Bailin, who also teaches at the University of Central Arkansas and UALR.

Neal Harrington, associate professor of art at Arkansas Tech University at Russellville, says winning a Delta Award last year "changed a lot for me.

"It made a real career as an artist a possibility," he says. Harrington's winning work was a woodcut and ink wash titled Snake Shakers Shack. He also had two other works in the exhibit that year.

"I struggled to show in Russellville, though I did well outside the state. Last year was a real confidence booster. It helped establish me in Arkansas and got me into Cantrell Gallery."

"Any time you get an award or recognition, it takes your work to a broader constituency," Bailin says.

"The Delta made my career. And winning again has given me a verification of my experiments in the studio."

For Cushman, winning a Grand Award was especially sweet, since the juror was Alison Saar, an artist he greatly admires. Saar is known for her exploration of the African cultural diaspora and spirituality.

"For her to acknowledge my work gave me confidence to keep exploring ideas in the studio," Cushman says.

When he shows locally, Cushman says, being a winner at the Delta "seems to be a way to market your work. You gain credibility.

"Confidence and credibility. That's what the Delta Exhibition gave me."

Style on 07/20/2014