Beaks of all kinds lined the Whitewater Arts Alliance’s (WAA) gallery walls, each frame housing a multitude of feathered friends. Dozens of artworks inspired by a one-word theme brought artists from locations never seen before in WAA galleries.
The WAA kicked off their monthlong “Artrageous Birds Juried Exhibition” March 5 with the awards reception taking place March 7. More than 80 pieces made the final cut for the traditional salon, which juror Ashley Dimmig says took some convincing.
“We were actually aiming for closer to 60 or 70 pieces in the physical gallery space,” said Dimmig, who is the director of the Crossman Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. “There were just some we couldn’t cut, some of it was just too good. We asked if we could bump up the numbers a little bit and they allowed it.”
The concise theme opened many doors for artists to be creative and versatile. The pieces did not have to include any technique or story, which provides the gallery with something different to look at in every corner of the room.
“Some go totally different directions,” Dimmig said. “Everything from a crowing rooster with a waffle behind its head to mother-child imagery to a bird tearing apart a fish. It really spans the gamut.”
The gallery’s versatility is also shown in the different mediums and color palettes. Mediums range from photography to watercolor and acrylic paintings, as well as charcoal drawings and collage art.
Exhibit co-chair Jeff McDonald loves the different representations made possible through the theme as well as the type of exhibition.
“Let’s say you have an exhibition that’s all paintings or photography or all sculpture, it flips to a technical competition,” McDonald said. “When you have all the different mediums, you can’t really judge so much on that, you have to go more for the artistic value.”
The exhibit’s expansion to two divisions allowed for a larger reach than before with this specific gallery. The digital salon drew contestants from Argentina and Sweden, while the traditional salon saw shipments from different states such as Kansas and Illinois.
“We’re reaching a broader general audience, not only the Whitewater community,” WAA gallery director Kim Adams said. “We’ve got evidence of who’s participating and submitting to different art calls.”
Artists also told personal stories in their pieces. Christine Courchaine, the artist of the mixed media piece “Divine Providence” and three others at the exhibit, wrote that “Divine Providence” was inspired by “memories of an old barn near the baseball field by my house.” The piece includes paintings of sparrows with branches and flowers, which flew back and forth at that field.
The awards reception saw 13 pieces receive honors, including “Great Blue Heron” by Jessica Lacki, which won Best in Show. Lacki, a 2025 graduate of UW-Whitewater, said the painting was her first time using physical glass. She fired the glass through a contour fuse, painted it with enamel paint, fired it again and finished with a lead channel.
“I want to do more experimentation with glass painting,” Lacki said. “It was more for fun and enjoyment, just a learning experience. And I really like blue herons, so that was a subject that I was interested in.”
First-place finishers included the “Nestling American Goldfinch on Sunflower” photograph by John Messley in the digital salon and “The Garden Spa” by Steve Matthias in the traditional salon, which is an oil painting showing three birds resting on a birdbath.
This exhibition is evidence that the WAA is promoting good experiences for a nationwide audience. The organization has been out of survival mode for a while and is now in the driver’s seat.
“When people come to a reception, they have a good experience and they tell their friends,” Adams said. “The overall impact is that a few years ago, we were in more of a survival mode and we’re more in a thriving mode now.”
