SFCC MOFAC celebrates the continuing artistic achievements of SFCC alumni Caroline Colby, Max Gooding, Whitney Broadaway, Dana Sacco, Chase Smith, and Laura Wolfe in an exhibition featuring their paintings, woodcut prints, photography, multimedia, and graphics. The exhibition proudly demonstrates how these former SFCC art students are maturing in vision, ability, and talent.

Co-sponsors: SFCC Alumni Association; Charles and Anne Reynolds; Bob and Monica Germaine

Mary Ann Carroll is praised as the only female of the Highwaymen, a group of  26 African-American artists who portrayed the serene and untouched Florida landscape of their time. In the last decade, their paintings have become highly coveted, and in 2004 the original Florida Highwaymen were inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame.

Co-sponsors:

Laurie and Norm Stephens;  Hill and Duke Ranch

Guardians of the Everglades is an art/conservation/education exhibition featuring Nicholas Petrucci’s oil portraits of people dedicated to preserving the Everglades ecosystem. Supporting the portraits to create the Everglades experience are Clyde Butcher’s black and white landscape photographs detailing the complexity of the glades, and Connie Bransilver’s photographs of colorful native orchids printed on diaphanous silk panels.

Co-sponsors: Jeanmaire and Donald Appelquist; Charles and Anne Reynolds

Photographer Jon Kral chronicles the daily work, environmental dangers, and family life of the endangered Florida cowboy. This gritty yet romantic part of Florida history continues to be threatened by highways, housing subdivisions, and shopping centers. Kral’s photographs serve as a record of this disappearing lifestyle.

Co-sponsors:  Charles and Anne Reynolds; Elsa and Marvin Kahn; Highlands Today

Well-known Central Florida artists, Donne Bitner and Cheryl Bogdanowitsch, exhibit their colorful, intriguing, and whimsical paintings and sculpture. Working intuitively, Bitner’s mixed media paintings have a dream-like quality. Working with sticks, branches, and roots, Bogdanowitsch creates gesturing, wooden figures.

Co-sponsor:  Jane Hancock

Science, art, and the natural world come together in the Wildflower Wayside Shrine Trail, a self-guided walking trail that explores pristine scrubland on the South Florida Community College Highlands Campus. Along the Wildflower Wayside Shrine Trail are six shrine boxes, created by artist Mollie Doctrow to honor the endangered plant species found on the SFCC Highlands Campus. For additional trail information go to www.waysideshrinetrail.com

This project is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.

SFCC MOFAC presents the second juried exhibition of artwork created by SFCC art students. Students co-organize the exhibition and assist with framing, installation, and promotion. 

Student Art Awards and Reception:  Thursday, April 19, 12:30 – 2 p.m.

The Lower Lobby Gallery features the atmospheric landscape photos of the Cracker Cowboy Collection by Jon Kral.

Reminiscent of early hand-painted post cards, Niki Butcher captures the fading facades and changing cultures of Florida in her color-tinted photographs, Her subjects include old shacks, lonesome sandy beaches  and the mysterious cypress strands of the Everglades.

On view from the MOFAC Permanent Collection are landscape paintings by Carolyn Staves and bird etchings by John Costin. SFCC MOFAC presents three recent additions to the John Costin Birds of Florida Collection.