Pictured are the winning artists from the seventh annual Rancho Cordova Arts Members exhibit alongside Cheryl Gleason, MACC art director and Rancho Cordova Arts president.

RANCHO CORDOVA, CA (MPG) - The art of Rancho Cordova Arts members is now being exhibited at the Mills Station Arts and Culture Center (The MACC). 

“I think when (the members) come into a show like this each year and they look at the quality, they want to up their game,” said Cheryl Gleason, MACC art director and Rancho Cordova Arts president. “So every year, it just builds to become a better and better show and this is by far the best quality of work we’ve had.”

The show began on June 5 and runs on the usual MACC exhibit schedule of 2 to 7 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays through June 21.

Winners this year include Vitaly Gubarik for best of show for a 11-foot sculpture, “Solenne.”

What’s different this year is that prize money will be paid to the winners. 

“For best of show, it’s $300,” Gleason said, “First-place is $200, second-place is $100, third-place is $75 and we did two honorable mentions for $50 each.”

Winners this year include Vitaly Gubarik for best of show for a 11-foot sculpture, “Solenne.”

First-place was Maddie Dunn for “I Don’t Hear the Music.”

Second-place was Jeremy Wells for “God Always Prevails.”

Third-place was Michelle Scott for “Mostly Blues and Gold.”

Two honorable mentions went to Frances Dack for “Mr. Noisy” and Polly LaPorte for “Yellow Skirt.”  

“Wells has an amazing piece in this show,” Gleason said.  “People look at it and go, like, ‘Oh, that’s a very lovely photograph.’ He is definitely topnotch.” 

Jeremy Wells is shown with his second-place drawing in charcoal, “God Always Prevails.”

Gubarik’s striking sculpture came about because he builds and designs in-ground pools. Trying to figure out how to make a pool look better, Gubarik decided that adding sculptures would help.  He started enjoying making the sculptures and “Solenne” resulted. 

“The name is “derived from ‘solemn,’” Gubarik said. “(It) evokes grace, silence and inner strength.”

Gubarik was unable to be present at the reception and awards ceremony.

Dunn’s winning work was inspired by her use of the subject of anxiety in her painting. 

“The way it’s distorted,” Dunn said, “makes it feel like the person in the painting is wrong or maybe their self-image is distorted.”

Scott said that she “was surprised and thrilled” at the third-place award for her abstract painting. 

Artist Maddie Dunn won first-place in the Members Show.  “I’m really interested in the topic of anxiety.  I’m drawn to that,” Dunn said.

Honorable mention winner Dack did her textile art piece from a photograph that she took of a squirrel in her back yard. 

“The pose was just perfect and irresistible and I could have almost not got anything wrong just because of the pose of the squirrel,” Dack said.

The other honorable mention, Polly LaPorte, was “attending a birth” and unable to be at the award ceremony. 

“I studied under Wayne Thiebaud at UC Davis and was influenced by him,” La Porte said later. 

The show was juried by artist Tony Natsoulas. 

“I was a jurator at New Line Gallery for eight years, which is in Roseville, so I put together I don’t know how many shows, probably 120 different shows. That really helped me with deciding what should be in the show and what shouldn’t be in the show,” Natsoulas said.

Natsoulas has a juror’s statement which he describes as “a paragraph of how I go about doing stuff.” Included in that statement are these three points that he considers. 

“First, does the artist know the medium?” Natsoulas said.

The second point that Natsoulas considers as a juror is, “Is the artist passionate about the subject matter?” 

The third, Natsoulas said, is “Does this piece inspire me or make me think about the world in a new way?”

“It was much better than a lot of ones that I’ve juried. A lot,” Natsoulas said about the Members Show.