The Artist's Intent

Hopkins artist C.J. Renner has a simple reason for why he chose to enter his work, Map of “Grey Open” with White Paint, in the State Fair’s fine arts show.

“I think more than anything it was a work of an appropriate size in a series I was working on,” he said.

But the drawing is more studied than that comment suggests. The work, his first successful entry in the State Fair show, is a calculated visual reference to one of Renner’s favorite works by artist Robert Motherwell.

Renner studied the painting and based his drawing on a schematic of the work’s forms, actually creating the work earlier this year with the intent to enter it into the fair.

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Do you know someone who's participating in the state fair this year? Maybe they have a piece in the Creative Activites show. Maybe they're performing on one of the stages. Maybe they're a vendor. If you know someone we should write about, e-mail james.warden@patch.com.