BY KATIE MCDOWELL / LIFESTYLES EDITOR

DeAnne Thorn won best in show at the third annual Shelby County Arts Council Juried Art Exhibit on the evening of Sept. 8.

Thorn won $500 for a mixed media pieces titled “Industrial Strength.”

While Thorn is also an instructor for the SCAC, Susan Gordon, director of arts and education for the organization, said the voting wasn’t rigged. The SCAC relied on an independent juror, Darius Hill, to select the winners.

Hill is an exhibiting artist and chair of the Visual Arts Department at the Alabama School of Fine Arts. He holds a bachelor’s degree in printmaking from the Atlanta College of Art.

Gordon said Hill encouraged the artists in attendance to keep challenging themselves in their work.

“He said if you’re not continually a student of the art … you’re not growing at all and you’re stagnant and it’s not a good place,” she said.

Thorn was not the only person with SCAC ties to place in the exhibit. Several other instructors and students also placed.

“I’m very proud that our instructors and students are also growing,” Gordon said.

Gordon said they had good participation in the competition this year. About 160 pieces of art were submitted. Of those, 66 pieces from 50 artists were accepted.

“There’s artists from all over the region that are in the exhibit,” she said.

Two of those artists include Alabaster residents Terry Freeman and Shirley Robinson. While Freeman has painting for about 20 years, they both began classes at the SCAC five years ago.

“We started out with acrylics, and now we’re doing watercolor,” Freeman said.

Both women had paintings for sale in the exhibit, although they have yet to sell their work on their own.

“Mine become babies,” Freeman said. “I don’t have a need to sell them.”

Freeman later placed in the exhibit, winning honorable mention for watercolors.

Artists who won their categories received $125 each.

The following artists were honored during the exhibition:

• Alexander Schmidt won Best of Ceramics.

• Lynn Schmidt won Honorable Mention for Mixed Media

• Shirley Robinson won Honorable Mention for 2D Media

• John B. Shadrick won Honorable Mention for Photography

• Jeanie Robertson won Best of Watercolors

• DeAnne Thorn won Best of 2D Media

• Carolyn Dorris won Best of Mixed Media

• Martha S. Summey won Honorable Mention for Acrylics

• Scott Owen won Honorable Mention for Oils

• Madelyn Carr Bonnett won Best of Photography

• Melinda Doriety won Honorable Mention for Ceramics

• Palo Pallas won Best of 3D Media

• Arthur Umlauf won Honorable Mention for 3D Media.