“The Wild Garden” by Susette Gertsch

Some of Utah’s finest plein air painters converged on Brigham City for the Brigham City Museum’s Fourth Annual Plein Air Competition.

Lydia Gravis, Gallery Director at the Mary Elizabeth Dee Shaw Gallery at Weber State, juried the competition and selected Susette Gertsch’s “The Wild Garden” for the first place honor.  “Plein air paintings often focus on the big vista, the vast horizon. I appreciated that this painting immersed me, instead, in the concentrated and unruly environment of a late-summer flower garden teetering between vitality and expiration,” Gravis says.

Gertsch is the author of Beginning Acrylic, which is a finalist for this year’s 15 Bytes Book Award in Art (see here). She also helped organize the Plein Air Rendezvous and Retreat happening in Heber Valley Sept. 13 – 16 (see here).

Don Miskin of Logan took second place with “Farm to Market Road’; and hometown boy G. Russell Case took third place with “Morning Flight.” All of these paintings received purchase prizes and will enter the museum’s permanent art collection.

Honorable Mention went to Eric J. Heywood of Ephraim for “Clouds”; Nancy Calderwood of North Logan for “Mantua Lake” and “Aspen Pleasance”; and Mary Pusey of Holladay for “Silver Lake Beaver Dam.”

An exhibition featuring the submitted works will hang at the Brigham City Museum through Nov. 11. An Awards Reception will be held Nov. 11 at 4 p.m. Refreshments will be served. The public is invited.The museum is located at 24 North 300 West. The entrance is on the west side. Hours are Tuesday through Friday from 11a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is free.