For ten years, YoloArts’ Art and Agriculture Project has inspired a community celebrating farms as art, and art created on farms. During this time, art has been cultivated on ninety Yolo County farms during the February – October annual season of artist visits. Each season of art culminates in the annual art show known as the Art Farm Exhibition.
This year’s exhibition opens on October 6 at Gallery 625 in Woodland and will feature 111 works of art by 80 artists (including three farming artists) in a collection of original art that includes oil, acrylic, watercolor and pastel paintings, mixed media, photography, ceramic sculpture, fused glass, and metal art.
Frank P. Ordaz, an accomplished landscape artist and former painter for George Lucas’ special effects company Industrial Light and Magic, has juried a portion of the exhibition.
“I feel honored and privileged to judge this year’s 10th Annual Art Farm exhibition. The Arts are alive and prospering in this community. I look forward to the entries as well as meeting the artists and those in this community who enhance the farming profile of Yolo County,” Ordaz recently stated.
Exhibition awards, including the Juror’s Pick, Blue-Ribbon Artist, and Best in Category will be announced at the Art Farm Gala on Nov. 4. Farmers will weigh in for the Farmers Pick, and the public will be able to vote for the People’s Choice award at the reception.
The show’s opening reception from 5:30 to 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 6 will also feature the winners of the Dorothy Peterson Arts Grant – a program for Yolo County teachers seeking funding for projects fusing the arts and agriculture, healthy eating, and sustainability created to honor the art and agriculture education legacy of the late Dorothy Peterson of Davis.
Hosted by YoloArts board members Carol Rose and Debra Gonella, the reception will feature live music by Roy Country Band performing traditional and homegrown country music, and the wine sponsor is Matchbook Wines.
In the upstairs gallery, the artwork of the winners of the Yolo County Farm Bureau’s National Ag Week Art Contest will be on display. Yolo County students in grades K-6 competed for four prizes at each grade level. Students from all five Yolo County school districts participated.
Art Farm will run through Nov. 1 at Gallery 625 in the County Administration Building, 625 Court St. in Woodland, after which the show moves to Hotel Woodland, 436 Main St. in Woodland, where the exhibit reopens for the Art Farm Gala fundraiser on Friday, Nov. 3.
Tickets for the gala are on sale now at yoloarts.org. Gallery 625 is located at 625 Court Street in Woodland and regular gallery viewing hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. For more information, call YoloArts at 530-309-6464.