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Lathrop Mayors Art reception tonight
LathropArtShow 1
Bennie Gatto holds an oil painting by Manteca artist Dan Voller. The scene is a familiar intersection in Manteca note the Manteca Bulletin building on the right. - photo by ROSE ALBANO RISSO

LATHROP – For the 19th year in a row, the City of Lathrop has transformed its Council Chambers into an art gallery. This venue will be the setting tonight from 6 to 9 o’clock for the reception honoring all the artists and the presentation of this year’s awards.

More than two-dozen cash and ribbon prizes will be given away for the winners in the different categories as well as in the People’s Choice and Students’ Choice awards. The covered award for the annual Mayor’s Art Purchase Award and Show and Sale is the $500 check given to the art piece selected by Mayor Joseph “Chaka” Santos. The Purchase Award winner will become part of the city’s permanent collection.

First place winners in the six different categories each receive $100. The categories this year are oil and acrylics, pastels and drawings, sculptures/3-dimensional, watercolor, photography, and miscellaneous. Ribbons go to the second, third and honorable mention winners.

Sponsor Awards of $100 each are also awarded to the entries selected by program sponsors who are made up of businesses and other art supporters in the community.

All art works are also for sale with 10 percent of the price going to the City of Lathrop to help fund future shows.

Today is the last chance to view the exhibit displayed at City Hall during regular business hours from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Among the previous winners of the prestigious Mayor’s Art Purchase Award are Manteca artists Tom Olson and Dan Voller.

The judge of the art show and sale this year was Dean De Cocker, the director of the University Art Gallery and a member of the faculty of the California State University, Stanislaus Art Department. A “nationally acclaimed sculptor with a prolific exhibition,” De Cocker uses everyday things to create his art pieces by utilizing “the technique of aircraft and racecar construction to fabricate objects consisting of inner structures and outer coverings to produce volumetric enclosures.” Among the common everyday things that influence his artistic creations are mailboxes, aircraft structures, wings and propellers, as well as heavy machinery and architectural works.