The Eastern community will have a chance to view student art pieces they created for this year’s annual Undergraduate All-Student Art Show at the Tarble Arts Center.

Accepted art pieces will be on display at Tarble from Saturday until March 28. The art exhibit is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Faculty and students see the show as an opportunity for artists to exhibit their work and receive criticism. A wide range of art will be in the show including paintings, fabrics, sculptures and more; in total 11 categories are represented.

Every year art department chair Glenn Hild encourages students to participate in the show.

“If you are going to be in the visual arts, you will have to participate and you might as well give it a shot,” Hild said. “It’s a great opportunity for students and their family to see your work on display. I would encourage everybody and anybody to come and see the exhibit.”

Students enter to compete for the many awards given out by a panel of three judges. In order to reduce bias, all three judges are selected from outside Eastern’s community.

Judges came from the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, the Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts in Bloomington, Ind. and the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas.

The jurors met Monday and decided which pieces will receive awards as well as which pieces will be exhibited.

Hild said a good number of people sent in their work for the exhibit. There are around 200 Eastern art students and anywhere from half to two-thirds of them submit work.

The awards will be presented to the winners on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. in the Tarble Arts Center Atrium. The Chairman’s Award will be given by the art department faculty and presented by Hild.

The award is given to the senior who “demonstrated exceptional abilities as a visual artist,” according to the prospectus. Hild has given this award every year for the past 11 years.

Nathan Motsinger, a senior two dimensional art major, had his paintings entered into the exhibit for the past two years and is confident about this year. After all his work, he is excited to go up against other artists.

“It’s definitely a good experience,” said Motsinger said. “This is so low-key and easy to submit your work. The location is really nice. It’s students that are always working next to you. You work a lot throughout the semester, and it’s cool to see your stuff in the gallery. “

Even though art is a competitive scene, Motsinger doesn’t let the competition and expectations of others get in the way of his work.

“I don’t look at it as judging,” Motsinger said. “I look at it as communicating, in a way. I get my emotions out of the way. It’s a challenge to meet everyone’s expectations, and everyone wants something different. You’re the artist and I’m going to do what I want to do.”

Art professor Suzan Braun has been part of the art show for about 30 years and enjoys seeing all the original pieces each year.

“Each artwork is unique and individual,” Braun said. “It’s always nice to see what our students do. They are all interesting.”

Motsinger encourages other art students to consider sending in their work for next year’s competition.

“Tarble is really good for getting people’s work out there,” he said. “You have to get out there and let people see it, whether it’s in a show, Internet or whatever.”

Michael Cortez can be reached at

581-7942 or [email protected].