Colfax artist honored in New York City

Roberta Tiemann of Colfax has been awarded signature membership in the prestigious American Watercolor Society, joining a small, but elite, group of national and international artists whose paintings meet high standards of the society's jurors on Jan. 22.

The process of obtaining signature membership is difficult and in many cases takes years to achieve. This year the society received well over 1,000 entires from artists across America and from 30 foreign countries, for those entires, 147 artists were selected for the 153rd annual exhibition with only 13 artists receiving signature membership this year, seven from America and six from foreign countries. Each artist is allowed to enter one image to be juried by five signature members of society. Four out of five jurors must agree on the painting to have it accepted in the exhibition. Each year the panel is different. Tiemann's work was accepted into the exhibit on Jan. 8.

The exhibition was supposed to run April 6-25 at the historic Salmagundi Club on 5th Avenue in New York City. Unfortunately, New York City closed down the Salmagundi Club and many other places because of the coronavirus outbreak. Because of this, the American Watercolor Society will have an online version of the exhibition during the dates of April 6-25 at their website americanwatercolorsociety.org They still are not sure if they will be able to have the actual exhibit in New York at a later date.

To obtain signature membership you must first be accepted over the years into two of the American Watercolor Societies' annual international exhibitions. Then you are allowed to apply for signature membership and with acceptance into your third exhibition you are granted signature status. Society members are then authorized to include AWS initials after their signatures as evidence of their achievements.

The American Watercolor Society was founded by 11 watercolor artists in December of 1866, which makes it one of the oldest and most prestigious art societies in America. The purpose of the society is to promote the art of watercolor and to exhibit the works of the best contemporary watercolor artists. Over the years, the term watercolor expanded to include other water media.

There will be $50,000 in awards presented at the exhibition.