Award Winners of WSA Annual Library Art Show

The Wellesley Society of Artists is proud to announce the award winners for the "Annual Library Show" currently on display at the Wellesley Public Library through November 29, 2025. The Judge for the show was Patrick McCay who completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in Fine Arts at the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland, U.K. McCay holds a second Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Notre Dame and is an active visiting artist and lecturer.

The award winners were announced at the Opening Reception on Sunday, November 9, 2025. Below are the award winners of the show, along with some of the judge's thoughts on his selections:
Patrick McCay Judge’s Statement:
“Firstly, all of the WSA members deserve appropriate accolades for the highly commendable creative continuity in participating in the exhibition. In art, we are generally dealing with an ability to represent experiences (real or imagined), in a lucid form through personal choice, style and expressive engagement. Issues of skill and technique, command of medium, quality of resolution, content, conceptual engagement, originality and presentation can all play attendant roles in the effectiveness of any work of art. We can write and agree about art, we can fight and disagree about art; ultimately though, it is my belief that we are about communication and response. If we are not making authentic connections, we have likely not successfully realized our initial artistic objective. Practice and improving skills, looking at work that we often visually dismiss will together provide vital catalysts to enhance artistic growth, knowledge and understanding!
In terms of my WSA award choices, I would ask that you might briefly suspend your own opinion and voice, in the temporary acceptance of someone else’s. We all learn by learning to look, looking more deeply and looking much more regularly and ‘searching’ beyond the all too obvious. Always remembering of course that our personal creative joy and artistic pleasure is the motive and quintessential mindset that supplements our being, purpose and shared community aesthetic consequence.”

First Place: Shelter and Flight, Colored Pencil, Deborah Friedman

Second Place: Composition 7, Acrylic, Judith Schneider

Third Place: Transported, Oil, Lori Mehta

Margaret Fitzwilliam Award for Best Watercolor: Waves Breaking, Watercolor, Cynthia Demir

Yale Nicolls Award for Best Interpretation of the Natural World: Sea Grass, Pastel, Sheila Davis

Honorable Mentions:
My Living Room, Late Afternoon – Watercolor – Joanna Dole
The Brook Path, Wellesley – Acrylic - Dayle Bodnar
Rolling Hills – Oil – Dottie Laughlin
Pastel Landscape – Pastel – Martha Marson