(Above: The Sun and the Moon, by 17-year-old Acer Boling-West is part of the 2022 Mayor’s Teen Art Show. After years of drawing, Boling-West, who attends Churchill High School, turned to painting three years ago and describes the piece as a challenge to “go out of my comfort zone with bolder shapes and colors, and a darker and more abstract theme.”

By Randi Bjornstad

It’s time again to marvel at the talent of artistic teens in the Lane County area, as the 23rd annual Mayor’s Teen Art Show gets underway on Sept. 9 at the Maude Kerns Art Center and remains up through Sept. 30.

That exhibit will take up the space in the Main Gallery, and a second show, the Whiteaker Printmakers’  2022 Emerald Print Exchange, also will be on view, in the art center’s Salon Gallery, also starting on Sept. 9 and ending Sept. 30.

Mayor’s Teen Art Show

This year’s display of artwork by young people ages 13-19 years includes submissions by 32 teens from 11 area schools. Jurors who selected the pieces in the show are artists River Banks, Patricia Montoya Donohue, and Karen Perkins.

A reception for the artists and awards ceremony will take place from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Sept. 23 at the Maude Kerns Art Center.

Title sponsor for this year’s Mayor’s Teen Art Show is the Maasch/Rubick Family in memory of Thomas M. Rubick. Lane Forest Products is the supporting sponsor.

Whiteaker Printmakers’ 2022 Emerald Print Exchange

The 2022 Emerald Print Exchange features a collection of 171 hand-pulled, fine art prints — including traditional woodcuts, etchings, and linocuts — by artists from 20 U.S. states and 11 countries.

The opening reception for the print exchange will be from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 9 at the Maude Kerns Art Center.

Sales of the work in the show will benefit the Whiteaker Printmakers, a membership group known familiarly as Whit Print. It was started by Paul and Heather Halpern in 2015 and has been operated since 2017 by the nonprofit organization called Fine Arts Brigade.

The artwork in the show can be purchased online at whitprint.com by way of a “reverse auction fundraiser,” which begins online on Sept. 5 and runs through Sept. 30. On Sept. 5, each print in the fundraiser will be priced at $95, and each day the price of unpurchased prints drops by $3, to a final rock-bottom price of $20.

As the printmakers caution, “The deal gets better the longer you wait, but will the print you love still be available?”

Maude Kerns Art Center

Where: 1910 E. 15th Ave., Eugene (corner of 15th and Villard streets)

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon to 4 p.m. on Saturdays during shows.

Information: 541-345-1571 or mkartcenter.org

 

Samples of the “reverse art auction” offerings at the Maude Kerns Art Center, a fundraiser for the Whiteaker Printmakers