Part Two: An Inside Look at President Bulger’s Picks for the Annual Student Art Awards
By Amanda Fallon
When President Peggy Bulger looks at student artwork, she is not simply looking for technical skill. She is looking for something that makes her stop.
“I generally look for work that does more than execute a technique well,” Bulger said. “I look for a piece that makes me look twice and then for a long time.”
That approach shaped her selection for this year’s Student Art Award. Two pieces by Ashlea Simons, Balanced and Silenced, stood out to Bulger because of the way they combined a demanding scratchboard technique with emotional meaning.
Scratchboard requires discipline. Once a mark is scratched into the black surface, there is no simple way to undo it. For Bulger, that made every line feel intentional.
“What moved me was how both pieces used that same demanding technique to say something different,” she said, describing one piece as speaking to discipline and the other to having no voice.
The emotional impact of the pieces was just as important as the technical skill.
Bulger said she tries to separate her personal preferences from the judging process by asking herself whether a piece can stand on its own as a distinguished work.
“Would it still be strong if it weren’t my taste at all?” she said.
That question is important because Bulger does not believe there is one particular style that makes a piece successful. Looking at previous winners, she said each year has been different. Instead of carrying the standards of one year’s show into the next, she looks at each collection of work independently.
The common thread she does see among winning pieces is “a compelling blend of technique and story.”
For Bulger, artwork can also create tension between seemingly opposing ideas. She is particularly drawn to relationships such as control and release, silence and voice, and light and dark. She saw this relationship between Balanced and Silenced, which she felt were connected even without explicitly telling the same story.
Her own taste in art is broad. She has a particular appreciation for contemporary realistic painting, including a painting by Miko Simmons depicting two sisters. She is also drawn to work that connects materials with history and labor, such as a piece by Aria Dean made from cotton with burn marks representing the labor of people in Southern cotton fields.
“What pulls me to any art is art that reminds me of something I care about,” Bulger said.
She also values artwork that changes the way a viewer sees the world.
Bulger’s appreciation for art began when she was a child growing up in large cities. Because her family moved frequently, visiting museums became part of her life. Later, studying literature in college deepened her understanding of how visual art can intersect with history.
Through photography, painting, watercolor and quilting, she became interested in how artistic expression can reveal what people were experiencing and feeling at a particular point in history.
Her perspective has continued to expand. Living in Oregon has increased her appreciation for natural materials, particularly ceramics. She said she tries to visit the student ceramics show whenever she can, appreciating pieces that are both useful and beautiful.
“Place really does shape what you gravitate toward,” she said.
Bulger’s artistic interests include American modernism, Cubism and contemporary art. More recently, she has been particularly interested in historical revisionism within contemporary art.
One artwork that has remained with her is Titus Kaphar’s The Jerome Project, which she described as the kind of work that changes how you see something after experiencing it.
She sees that same possibility in student artwork.
For students hoping to create award-winning work, however, Bulger’s advice is simple: don’t try to guess what the judge wants.
“Please don’t chase what you think a judge wants to see,” she said.
Instead, she encourages artists to create work that feels necessary to them. The strongest pieces in this year’s show, she said, were the ones where the artist’s choices felt intentional—from the materials and composition to the final expression.
“There was nothing haphazard” about those choices, Bulger said.
Ultimately, the Student Art Award is not about finding one formula for successful art. It is about recognizing work that communicates something, demonstrates intention and gives the viewer a reason to stay with it.
For Bulger, the best artwork does more than catch your eye.
It makes you look again.