By Lin Lofley

More than 50 artists who are part of the UT Southwestern Medical Center community were recognized recently at the 15^th Annual “On My Own Time” reception, held at the A.W. Harris Faculty and Alumni Center on the South Campus.

Top prize winners in the UT Southwestern OMOT show were:

• Gabrielle Cox, research technician, who won in the Work on Paper competition (amateur category), and whose work, called Osaka, Japan was judged by a three-person panel of visiting artists to be Best in Show;
• Tyler Ellis Smith, fourth-year medical student and amateur photographer, who took home the “People’s Choice” award for his, Sandhill Crane Landing, in the  Color Photography category; and
• Paula Walker, Program Coordinator in the Advanced Imaging Research Center, whose Mixed Media creation, Midnight Run, was the winner of the annual Sustainability Award, given to an artist whose work makes use of natural materials.

Ms. Cox, who earned an undergraduate degree in Zoology at Texas A&M University, won with her second entry in the exhibition, calling her piece “a visual representation of my interest in East Asian culture. She said the piece was the fruit of an art class at a Cedar Hill art school, Visual Expressions.

Mr. Smith traveled last winter with two friends to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in Socorro, New Mexico, where thousands of snow geese and Sandhill cranes spend the winter.

“We went specifically to see the birds,” said Mr. Smith, who got his first single-lens reflex camera in 2006, and has been an avid photographer since. “Every evening, the flocks land and settle in for the night in the wetland area. Every morning, they take off and fly away to feed.”

Interestingly, he was unable to attend the awards ceremony because he had a prior engagement: “I was studying for the STEP 2 Clinical Skills exam. Of course, that takes priority.”

Ms. Walker won with her first OMOT entry, but she has long been fascinated by found objects she finds on long nature walks in North and Central Texas farm land.

“To save on canvas costs for new ideas, I started out picking up scrap boards in the neighborhood,” said Ms. Walker, who has worked at UT Southwestern for more than 18 years in two tours of duty. “I later graduated to interesting rocks, old tree logs and other natural objects that catch my eye.”

Winners

The OMOT winners in their respective categories, with the names of their works, are:

Jewelry and Metal – 1^st place (amateur), Barbara J. Moore, untitled.

Textiles and Fiber Art – 1^st place (amateur), Nancy Gillings, Starbucks: Theme and Variations.

Mixed Media – 1^st place (amateur), Susan Fredrickson, Anticipation; Honorable mention (amateur), Paula Walker, Midnight Run.

Ceramic, Glass, Wood and Sculpture – 1^st place (professional), Les Nini, Nature’s Banister; 1^st place (amateur) Sculpture, Laura McCullough, USMC Valor; 1^st place (amateur) Ceramics, Alden Williams, Guarded; Honorable Mention (amateur), Edwin Montes, A Tribute to Eagles.

Enhanced photography and/or Computer Art – 1^st place (professional), Mark W. Smith, Highway 77 – Last Stop for Gas; 1^st place (amateur), Ed Safford, Day 1; Honorable mention (amateur), Dhruba Deb, Strange attractor of cancer in its phase space.

Black and White Photography – 1^st place (professional), Mark W. Smith, Jerry; 1^st place (amateur), Jennifer Melton, Brotherly Love; Honorable Mention (amateur), Ping-Hung Chen, Life will find a way out.

Color Photography – 1^st place (professional), Christopher Dyke, #selfie; 1^st place (amateur), Lea Rhea Capote, Pink Water Lily; Honorable mention (amateur), Tyler Ellis Smith, Sandhill Crane Landing.

Works on Canvas – 1^st place (professional), Steve Duvall, Self Abstraction, 1^st place (amateur), Laura Ellen Fincher, Halle Ellen Dunn, Mary Ellen Culbreth, Sunflower Summer; Honorable mention (amateur), Rebecca Vermette, LionWood.

Works on Paper – 1^st place (amateur), Gabrielle Cox, Osaka, Japan; Honorable mention (amateur), Haley Speed, Autumn.