Sue Roberts of Guemes Island took home the Best of Show award for her piece “Enjoying Nature” at the Anacortes Arts Festival Arts at the Port show. 

Sue Roberts of Guemes Island took home the Best of Show award for her piece “Enjoying Nature” at the Anacortes Arts Festival Arts at the Port show. 

At the end of Commercial Avenue each year during the Anacortes Arts Festival is the Arts at the Port show, featuring fine art pieces by more than 80 artists.

Juror Greg Robinson looked through 950 submissions and selected 120 pieces for the show.

He awarded the Best of Show award (worth $2,000) to Guemes Island artist Sue Roberts.

“It’s a happy surprise,” Roberts said of winning the award. “I truly didn’t expect it and am very honored to be chosen.”

Robinson awarded $1,000 Excellence awards to Anacortes artist Anne Martin McCool and Bow artist Ann Reid.

The festival awarded its own $1,000 award to Snohomish artist Terry Shinn, as well as a $500 Douglas Burton Memorial Award to Seattle artist Lucia Enriquez and a $500 Matt Brown Memorial Award to La Conner artist Craig Barber.

The $500 T-Bailey Corporate Award went to John Blackburn of Stanwood, and the $1,000 Eve Deisher Artistry Award sponsored by Lanny Bergner went to Cathy Schoenberg of Anacortes.

The Purchase in Schools Award, sponsored by Keith Sorenson and selected by Island View Elementary School staff, went to Anacortes artist Janet Blanquies.

As for the Best of Show award, Roberts’ award-winning piece “Enjoying Nature” depicts a clay figure holding a cigarette and a to-go cup of coffee while taking a selfie of himself and a barren tree (with just one green leaf) behind him.

Whether that one leaf is the last of its kind or new growth showing up is up to the viewer to decide, she said. She created the art while thinking about Climate Change and how some people “explore nature.”

Some people spend a day in the forest, using that time to take photos to share on social media. Those pictures can inspire people to visit the same spot, which can have a major impact on that natural environment, Roberts said.

She said she wanted to bring in the idea of respecting nature and taking care of it, while also showcasing that human presence in that natural world can make a huge difference.

The piece is one of three of her pieces shown this year. All were made of clay, her preferred medium, and showcase figures.

Even when not working in clay, she said her style definitely has an edge and a message.

“It has some humor, but that humor can be a little biting,” she said.

Roberts’ figures aren’t modeled after anyone else’s work or after specific people, though she often sees features from friends and family show up in them. Her figures often have some “odd” features, like big eyes, she said.

The pieces are supposed to look casual and include features that could be anyone. People can see themselves or people they know in the art, she said.

Roberts started working as an artist in high school and studied art in college. There, she took a clay class, and that changed her focus moving forward. Though she did work with sheet metal (still creating figures) for a while, clay is predominantly what she uses.

Roberts moved to Guemes Island in the late ’90s and built her Guemes Island studio in 2001. She works there and hosts classes for the community.

She said it’s been difficult to get work done the last few years because of life distractions, but winning this award is helping affirm that she should be making art.

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