The judges will remain anonymous, says the awards panel chairwoman.

09:05 AM EST on Wednesday, February 9, 2005

BY MARK REYNOLDS
Journal Staff Writer

A few of Paul Lewis' friends called him an "angry Republican" yesterday after they learned he had phoned TV stations and newspapers to complain about a high school student's art project.

Lewis held his ground as his complaint was debated on talk radio.

The 34-year-old North Providence man is miffed by a three-dimensional art piece that compares President Bush to Hitler, but he says he is more unhappy with the teachers and artists who decided the work was worthy of a silver key in the annual Rhode Island Scholastic Art Awards competition.

"Who is judging this stuff?" Lewis said.

Leaders of the art association refuse to identify the three judges who picked the project entered by Jeffrey Eden, a junior at Chariho Regional High School, to be one of the winners in the three-dimensional category.

Mary Wayland, who chaired the awards committee, and Christine Mullen, a teacher at Mt. Hope High School and president of the Rhode Island Art Education Association, say they want judges to have the freedom to make decisions without worrying about a public outcry.

The controversial entry, entitled "Bush/Hitler and How History Repeats Itself," was among about 640 artworks entered in this year's competition by students in grades 7 through 12.

In all, 15 judges -- teachers and professional artists -- participated. According to Wayland, the judging goes something like this:

The initial pool of entries is divided up by grade level and type of art -- photography, paintings, ceramics, for example.

Then, small clusters of judges begin selecting winners in each subgroup. They look at each entry and raise a paddle if it evokes a feeling. The entries that evoke the most feeling make it to a final round where the judges discuss them in detail, Wayland said.

On Jan. 8, three judges selected Jeffrey Eden's piece from a collection of three-dimensional entries as a silver key winner. Wayland says she doesn't know how many entries there were in the category.

Enter The Providence Journal, a sponsor of the competition for at least 15 years. The newspaper publishes a list of the 208 gold and silver winners in a promotional advertisement and arranges for a place to exhibit the winners, according to Barbara Nauman, The Journal's director of promotion.

This is the fourth year that Alperts Furniture Showplace on Route 6 in Seekonk has agreed to provide space for the exhibit and for an evening awards ceremony.

Wayland said she is always astounded by the choices the panels make. It's such a subjective process that it's hard to predict which works will catch the judges' eyes, she said.

"It's just a matter of who the judges are and how they decide," she said. "And that's true of any juried art exhibit."

The winners go on display long after the judging takes place. Neither The Providence Journal nor Alperts have anything to do with the decision of the judges.

"I wouldn't comment on any piece of art here," the furniture store's owner, Hershel Alpert, said last week, noting that he isn't an art expert. "It's not my position to comment on any of this art."