The Cedarburg Cultural Center (CCC) is proud to announce the award winners of its current exhibit and sale entitled “All Things Big and Small.” The exhibit is a new take on the Center’s annual “Little Show,” this year highlighting large scale works alongside miniatures. The show is comprised of a diverse group of artworks by 23 Wisconsin artists, exploring a thrilling contrast of sizes from the very small to the very tall! Media represented in the exhibit includes paintings, sculpture, ceramics, photography, textiles and more.

Four Honorable Mentions were given to: Bruce Hustad, Kathryn Klemp, Mary Ulm Mayhew and Mary Ellen Mueller. The Second Place award went to Susan Hale for her large scale oil paintings. The First Place award went to Christopher Behrs for his miniature pastels. The Best of Show award went to Vicki Reed for her encaustic photographs. With the award, Reed wins a future solo exhibit of her work at the CCC.

One of the most ancient painting mediums in the world, encaustic dates back 5,000 years to the Greeks. They applied a layer of wax to their ships to make them weatherproof and when they discovered that they could add pigment to the wax they began creating paintings on the hulls. “Encaustic” comes from the Greek word, encaustikos, meaning “to burn in”, referring to the use of heat to fuse the layers of wax together.

Most of Reed's encaustic work begins with coating a substrate (wood or hardboard) with encaustic gesso and then adding three layers of wax, each layer fused to the previous one by using a heat gun. Her images are from scanned silver gelatin prints produced in her wet darkroom using traditional and alternative methods. Images are transferred to handmade Japanese rice paper using a digital printer with pigmented inks or by making alcohol transfers. They also can be printed on silk, cotton or canvas.

According to Reed, "Depending on the effect I want, an image is added early or late in the process of applying wax. I sometimes work the surface of the piece with tools and oil sticks or pastels to add texture and color to the work."

Also participating in this year’s annual juried exhibit were artists: Patty Aker, Allen Caucutt, Dottie Diggs, Patrick Doughman, Julie Frothingham, Shirley Gruen, David Henke, Diane Henke, Claudette Lee, Paul Madura, Deb Mortl, Gary Warren Niebuhr, Jim Selle, Kitty Sturrock, Helen Waldschmidt and Susan Willets.

Award winners were chosen by Lee Ann Garrison. Garrison is a painter, arts writer, and chair of the Department of Art and Design, Peck School of the Arts at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She writes art reviews periodically for Third Coast Digest and has exhibited her paintings nationally.

The exhibit and sale runs from Saturday, January 7 through Sunday, February 5.

The 2011-2012 Exhibit Season is proudly sponsored by Tri City National Bank.