Joshua Parker, Jester, 2007, mixed media, 84 x 8 x 16 in. (detail). Image courtesy of the artist.

On A Pedestal and Off The Wall, The Fourth Annual Exhibition of Small Sculpture from the Region opens on Friday, June 6 from 5:30 to 8:30 pm with a director’s talk at 6:30 pm. The opening is free and open to the public. This year’s prestigious juror, Gregory Amenoff, Chair of the Visual Arts Division of Columbia University’s School of the Arts, New York, selected 26 works by 20 artists from Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Ontario, Canada. Artists include Brandy Agnew, Leticia R. Bajuyo, Matthew Boonstra, Susan Byrnes, Brian Caponi, Stefan Chinov, Jon N. Cotterman, Chad D. Curtis, Walter Early, Ed Hallahan, Delanie Jenkins, Taylor Maida, Eric Mirabito, Anne O’Callaghan, Joshua Parker, Julie Schenkelberg, Matt Steele, Scott Stibich, Nick Vanderpool, and Lauren Yeager. The artists, whose resumes were not consulted by the juror, range in experience from a self-trained electrical engineer to students still in art school to assistant art professors to artists well established in the field. The artwork varies in size from a stripped #2 pencil (Matt Steele, Raw, 2008) to a floor to ceiling installation of orange painted PVC piping that suggests a tornado funnel made solid (Leticia R. Bajuyo, Forces of Nature, 2007). The aesthetics of the juror are manifested in a coherent body of strong works of art that are united by inherent contradictions of ideas and materials, meticulous fabrication or purposefully ephemeral construction, appropriation of commercial products, and a good sense of humor.