DOWAGIAC — Southwestern Michigan College’s annual juried student art exhibition closed on April 25 with an awards ceremony in the remodeled Art Gallery, room 108 of the Dale A. Lyons Building on the Dowagiac campus. Graphic Design II student Maria Freed won David Mathews’ Presidential Award and a $500 Best of Show scholarship was presented to Leigh Todt for Ceramics 1.

The show celebrates students enrolled in drawing, painting, graphic design, two- and three-dimensional design, ceramics and photography. Eliana DiMarzio sang the national anthem to open the event.

The event was hosted by Visual and Performing Arts Chairman Marc Dombrosky, with additional support by art faculty Shannon Eakins and Bill Rothwell.

SMC alumna Jessika Clement, whose paintings were featured in a February solo exhibition and are part of the college’s permanent collection, helped to judge the work. She has lived in Grand Rapids since graduating from Kendall College of Art and Design of Ferris State University. Clement, from Edwardsburg, graduated from SMC in 2014, and some of her work will debut this fall at ArtPrize.

A $300 Visual and Performing Arts Scholarship was announced for Cindy Deihl, Ceramics I, while Jasmine Brady, Drawing I, collected a $200 Visual and Performing Arts Scholarship. Other awards included:

Ceramics I: Jennifer Hinton.

Ceramics II: Destiney Smith.

Drawing I: Sarah Bute, Emma Haas, Faith White.

Drawing II: Alaina Woodruff.

Painting I: Allison Richcreek.

Two-Dimensional Design: Faith White, Jade Sibley, Emma Haas.

Three-Dimensional Design: Kailee McCain, Faith White, Eric Thiele.

Photographic Design: Cindy Deihl, Jared Sergio, Mikayla King.

Digital Photography: Autumn Alabaugh, Daniel Keyes.

Digital Publishing: Mikayla King, Allison Richcreek.

Graphic Design II: Maria Freed, Mikayla King, Krista Bryant, Megan Plasterer.

Typography: Allison Richcreek, Eliana DiMarzio.

Vice President of Instruction Dr. David Fleming represented the apocryphal Pfliger Foundation for the Arts and awarded the traditional $49.95 and a new toaster to Allison Richcreek. Terry Pfliger, who died June 9, 2016, taught at St. Lawrence College in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, from 1973-95. In 1999, the mischievous only child who took humor seriously, introduced SMC to his “foundation” run by invented siblings, twin brother David and younger sister Marlene, that awarded students toasters as a way of saying he really liked a piece of artwork.

Madeline Collins also presented the first Madeline Collins Award to Jacqueline Roberts.

The student exhibition now makes way for the Sophomore Scholarship Portfolio Exhibition, which runs in the art gallery May 1-2. Hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. for public viewing.