The 73rd annual Under the Oaks Fine Arts & Crafts Show, hosted by the Vero Beach Art Club, was another huge success, drawing tens of thousands of visitors to peruse and purchase works by some 210 artists.
“We have a number of new artists, about 25 percent, so 50 to 60. Some new young artists too, which is good,” said longtime event chair Alicia Quinn.
As in the past, members of the Art Club are juried in alongside the whole population of applicants, with the top 15 percent of members accepted. Jurying, she said, begins in October and artists are notified by Thanksgiving of their acceptance.
“The money that we collect goes to scholarships and education. Some of the profit we make from this also goes to classes for the veterans groups and for teens,” said Quinn, adding that this is the club’s biggest fundraiser.
“We have our junior group here for the first time ever. They are showing some of their framed work in the tent right next to the Charter High School,” said Quinn, noting that the school generally provides some 150 students over the weekend to help out with a variety of tasks.
“The Cultural Council is making a video of Under the Oaks this year to promote tourism and to promote the arts in this county. So we’re going to be combining clips from this and interviews with artists and patrons who were at the show, with some other videos that are being provided for us by other organizations and use them for advertising. So that’s a big new adventure for us this year,” said Quinn.
As always, judges from outside the area were given the difficult task of selecting the winners. This year’s judges were Margaret Schnelby Hodge, a large-format, abstract artist from Ormond Beach; Tom Joule, director of the Art School at Boca Raton Museum of Art; and Linda Richichi, a renowned landscape artist and teacher at the Art Center Sarasota.
For more information, visit VeroBeachArtClub.org.
Photos by Joshua Kodis
