Fl3tch3r exhibit
Each year, the “FL3TCH3R Exhibit: Social and Politically Engaged Art” reaches new milestones. In 2019, the seventh annual exhibition at East Tennessee State University’s Reece Museum, Sept. 30 to Dec. 13, features two new awards and a juror known worldwide for her books, essays, political graphic art and unapologetic activism, Sue Coe.
The “FL3TCH3R Exhibit” was created as an unapologetic forum for social and political expression through the visual arts, say co-directors Barb, Wayne and Carrie Dyer, who established the exhibition in memory of Fletcher Dyer, a senior ETSU art and design student who was in a fatal motorcycle accident in 2009.
“Every year we are humbled by the new bonds we’ve formed, the roots we have grown, the loyal supporters who are here year after year and by the soul-touching artists and their work that is unearthed,” says Fletcher’s sister, Carrie Dyer, a graphic artist and art educator.
The directors of the “FL3TCH3R Exhibit” have issued their Call for Entries to artists through Aug. 23, with an extended deadline of Aug. 31. A non-refundable fee of $40 is required for submission of up to three entries, with an additional $10 fee per artwork/title over three. Artists should submit entries online or consult the prospectus, which can be found at www.FL3TCH3Rexhibit.com/downloads/prospectus.pdf.
A portion of the entry fees funds the Fletcher Hancock Dyer B.F.A. Graphic Design Scholarship Award given annually to a student in the ETSU Department of Art and Design.
Work submitted for the “FL3TCH3R Exhibit,” should reflect current issues that affect contemporary culture and investigate societal and political concerns. Submissions are accepted from these categories: audio/sound, ceramics, digital, fiber, glass, graphic design, jewelry/metals, mixed media (2D and 3D), painting, performance/installation (via video), photography, printmaking, sculpture, video/film and other.
Submissions will be considered and selected this year by printmaker and author Sue Coe, who began her visual art career in the U.S. as an illustrator for The New York Times Op-Ed page, as well as The Nation, Entertainment Weekly, The Progressive, The New Yorker and Rolling Stone magazines.
Two memorial awards are new this year.
The first is in memory of former ETSU Department of Art and Design faculty member and chair Jack Schrader, known for his filmmaking, photography and sculpture. Schrader died Nov. 7, 1993, while serving as chair of the department.
“I am excited for the exhibit to offer more awards celebrating significant arts supporters, as well as benefiting more ‘FL3TCH3R’ artists whose work is also celebrated,” says Wayne Dyer, Fletcher’s father and graphic design faculty member at ETSU. “Jack Schrader was a significant part of the arts community in Johnson City and at ETSU, and I am especially pleased to honor and celebrate his life through the Jack Schrader Award.”
This year, the Dyers have added an award in memory of Dorothy Carson, the mother of graphic designer David Carson.
In addition, the health care and arts award has been renamed in honor of Dr. Eric Avery, 2016 “FL3TCH3R” juror, 2019 Basler Chair of Excellence for the Integration of the Arts, Rhetoric and Science and printmaker, psychiatrist, educator and activist. Avery is funding this award.
The exhibit offers more than $1,000 in awards,
“We are confident that the exhibit has facilitated Fletcher’s dream to ‘create a movement that others will follow,’” says Barb Dyer, Fletcher’s mother and a lawyer. “We know Fletch would love the extended family created by the exhibit and all of us hope that it will continue to grow.”
For more information about the exhibit and submissions, visit http://www.FL3TCH3Rexhibit.com. For more on the Reece Museum, visit www.etsu.edu/reece or call 423-439-4392.
