Nature Art Showcase winners announced

From staff reports

Attendees at last weekend’s Third Annual Nature Art Showcase cast ballots for the “People’s Choice” awards while they viewed more than 70 items displayed in the main lobby of the Barrow-Civic Theatre in downtown Franklin during the Franklin On Ice festival.

The top vote-getter with 40 votes was a multi-media art entry titled “Into The Woods” by Paul La Pierre Sr. of Knox. LaPierre utilized raw timber as a very tall frame to contain a clear-glass covered photograph he had taken of a summer woods scene. As his prize, he received a pottery vase in a lily design provided courtesy of Campbell’s Pottery Store in Cambridge Springs.

The next highest number of “People’s Choice” votes was 29, cast for John Carbone’s “Nature’s Ice Sculptures” photograph which captured frozen water droplets and their reflections in a flowing winter stream. Carbone resides in Clarion.

Other runner-ups were art items submitted by Mike Weber of Grove City, Amy Hahn of Cambridge Springs and Thomas Siverling of Cochranton.

Weber’s “Truth Seeker” is a photograph printed onto metal showing an individual walking into Rockland Tunnel on the Allegheny River Trail, carrying a single light; it received 25 votes.

Hahn’s “Barn Owl” blends several types of stained glass into a realistic depiction of a perched barn owl; it received 24 votes.

At 22 votes, Siverling’s “Through The Trees” is a black and white photograph illustrating natural lighting.

Representatives of the Council on Greenways and Trails selected “Happy Go Lucky,” a colored pencil rendering by Janine Stiffler of Tionesta of a raccoon, to be featured in the art shirt produced from this year’s event in the coming months.

The council has traditionally produced a new shirt each year.

Other year’s shirts featured Susan McGuire’s “Two Mile Run” watercolor and John Carbone’s “A Glimpse Into the Soul of a Dandelion.”