Maywood students attend MCC paint-in
The McCook Community College Art Department staged its 41st annual paint-in competition Friday, April 7th, at the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center, located on the MCC campus.
The annual event is a two-pronged event in which MCC displays the work from area high schools in the Wrightstone Fine Arts Gallery on campus for the two weeks leading up to the paint-in competition. These works are judged in a variety of categories and the winners announced at the paint-in competition. This year’s judge for both the exhibition and the paint-in competition, was MCC graduate Lucas Kotschwar.
The paint-in itself brings together more than 25 teams of high school art students who gather at the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center for a timed team painting competition. The format has changed slightly each year. This year the teams will each select a theme via a random draw and have two hours and 45 minutes to develop with tempera paint, and compete the theme on a four-by-six foot piece of heavy drawing paper. This year teams of high school artists created works based on the theme “What lies Beneath” announced by MCC graduate, Kotsschwar. Judges usually give students a lot of room for interpreting the theme. For instance, “What lies Beneath” can have many different meanings and nuances.
The event is capped off with an awards ceremony in which the winning pieces from the exhibition are showcased and the winners recognized. Then the results from the team paint-in competition are announced.
This year’s paint-in starts at 9 a.m. Friday at the Peter and Dolores Graff Events Center when the rules are announced and the paint-in themes are selected with the clock starting at 9:15 a.m. The public is invited and encouraged to attend the paint-in as well as the awards ceremony, which begin at 1 p.m.
Schools participating in this year’s event include: Southwest High, Hayes Center, Chase County, Cambridge, Southern Valley, Gothenburg, Norton, McCook, Hitchcock County, Medicine Valley, Stapleton, Sutherland, Ogallala, Wauneta-Palisade, Arnold, Maywood, Dundy County-Stratton, Wallace, and Lexington.
Portions of this article were taken from the McCook Gazette.