See the best of the best at
our Annual Juried Exhibit (AJE)
August 30 to October 13, 2024
It’s one of our most prestigious events of the year, not just because it is a juried show, but because it features the work of our extraordinary CAG members. The Annual Juried Exhibit (AJE) attracts collectors from throughout the Midwest interested in acquiring unique work. This show displays the work of our esteemed CAG members in a broad spectrum of media including: sculpture, metal, photography, pottery, glass, textiles, wood, mixed media, painting (oil, acrylic, watercolor, etc.) and so much more.
Digital submissions are open from July 15th - August 5th.
Winners of AJE 2023
BEST OF SHOW
It Comes with Age, Colored Pencil by Landon Naffin
BLUE RIBBON 2D
Low Tide, Watercolor
by Tom Kubala
Are you Talk’n to me?,
Mono Print
by Jack Pachuta
Pike Place Market, Oil
by Mary Ulm Mayhew
BLUE RIBBON 3D
Prairie Girl 2,
Wood and Metal
by Dan Grunst
Honoring Florence,
Fiber Art
by Gina Studelska
RED RIBBON 2D
To Dream a Dream,
Tempera
by Patrick Doughman
Carpenter Ants,
Acrylic
by Joan Hollnagel
Lily Stalk,
Watercolor
by Bruce Hustad
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Nature Design,
Digital Photograph
by Fred Thorne
Say Yes to the Dress,
Floral Living Art Sculpture
by Brenda Greuel
Awards
BEST OF SHOW
The winner will receive $200
2-D Awards
3 Blue Ribbon(s) and $100
3 Red Ribbon(s) and $50
1 Honorable Mention and $25
3-D Awards
1 Blue Ribbon and $100
1 Red Ribbon and $50
1 Honorable Mention and $25
Meet the jurors for AJE 2024!
Peggy Thurston Farrell
Michael Imes
Peggy Thurston Farrell is an Emerita Professor of Art at Carroll University where she taught printmaking, design and was gallery director for 28 years. Farrell received her Master of Fine Arts in Printmaking from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She did her undergraduate work at Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin, graduating with a degree in Art Education.
Farrell’s art is widely exhibited and collected and is in numerous collections both private and public. Over the years her work has evolved from the two-dimensional print medium to collaged, painted and silkscreened three-dimensional paper and wood constructions.
Farrell’s work has been shown in both solo and group exhibitions across the United States, Japan and regionally, including the Cedarburg Art Museum, the University of Tennessee’s Fine Arts Gallery, Tory Folliard Gallery, the Philadelphia Print Club, the Wisconsin Visual Artists Biennial Exhibition at the Anderson Art Center in Kenosha and the Southern Graphics International Traveling Print Exhibition. In 2001 she was awarded the Professional Dimensions Sacajawea commission and in 2008 won the Waukesha Public Library commission to create a five-part relief piece titled Evolution of Expression that can be viewed in the new book area of the library. In the spring of 2022, she exhibited her Sabbatical work titled Foxconn Con in the Joyce Bliss Gallery at Carroll
University. The exhibition exposed the damage done to the Wisconsin environment while building the Foxconn megacomplex.
Her works are colorful, layered thought provoking collages and mixed media silkscreen prints. Much of her work explores the concepts of containment, the relationship of ancient and contemporary symbols and virtual vs. spiritual realities. Most recently, her work has become more political as she addresses issues of government corruption,
pollution and land mismanagement.
Michael Imes is a professor of Ceramics at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. Michael received his Master of Fine Arts in clay from Southern Illinois University - Carbondale in Illinois. Michael is a highly regarded ceramics artist and has been a studio artist for more than forty years, and states his work is influenced by nature, geometry, and the clay work of ancient cultures, such as Neolithic, Assyrian, Sumerian, Chaldean, Babylonian,
Mycenean, Minoan, etc. He explores vessel forms, their formal relationships, and the archetypal gestures inherent in those forms. As well as being an accomplished teacher and exhibiting artist, Michael is a musician.
Artist Statement
Human beings have used vessels for thousands of years, for so long that they have taken on symbolic/archetypal meaning. My stoneware vessels are explorations of these archetypes. As such, they speak of growth and expansion, the capacities of holding and of gestation, and the functions of gathering and offering. The pinch and coil method of construction allows me to interact with the clay, to respond creatively, in a process of
exploration facilitating the discovery of new vessel expressions. I choose to work in stoneware because I like the idea that it gives my pieces more of a geological lifespan; they become (through the making and firing) a different, more permanent thing with a new place in time. They have the possibility of a life that will extend far into the future.