Correspondent photos / Sean Barron Guy Shively of Austintown stands next to his creation, titled “Working at the Quarry,” during Sunday’s opening reception for the 85th Area Artist Annual at The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown. The show, which runs through Feb. 23, features about 120 pieces of art.

Butler

Annual winners

85th Area Artist Annual award winners

First place: Josh Long, “The Annunciation.”

Second place: Lindsay DeLullo, “Sycamore Sojourn.”

Third place: Brenda Myers Cohen, “Summer Solstice.”

Director’s Award: Thomas Sewickley, “Koi.”

Best in Show: Josh Ryhal, “Yes Sayer.”

Purchase prize: Derek Winkle, “#004.”

Robert Yalch Memorial Award: Pamela Shane, “Bicycles in Waiting.”

Fred Staloff Award: Christi Kacvinsky, “Eggs.”

Jean Shreffler Award: Guy Shively, “Working at the Quarry.”

YOUNGSTOWN — The latest in Guy Shively’s artwork series doesn’t precisely align with the well-known 1974 Harry Chapin folk song, “Cats in the Cradle,” but is more in lockstep with cats in the cab.

“It’s the 10th one I’ve done of dogs and cats. They’re all on 3/4-inch plywood and scraps people give me,” Shively, of Austintown, said.

Shively was referring to an enamel-on-wood piece he created called “Working at the Quarry,” his artistic rendering showing the front of a lime-green Euclid quarry truck, the likes of which were manufactured at a Cleveland plant. The piece depicts his late dog, Lainie, driving, with his three cats — Jerry, Winnie and Abby — next to the dog in the front of the cab.

“In all of these paintings, the dog has to drive; you can’t trust cats,” he said with a chuckle.

The eye-catching artwork also is among the 120 pieces from 102 local and regional artists that have been selected for the Butler Institute of American Art’s 85th Area Artist Annual, which opened to a reception Sunday afternoon at the museum, 524 Wick Ave., near downtown.

The exhibition continues through Feb. 23 and showcases prints, pastels, drawings, oil, acrylic and watercolor paintings, sculptures, photographs and ceramics from artists who live in or are from Mahoning, Columbiana and Trumbull counties, as well as Mercer and Lawrence counties in Pennsylvania.

When he’s not artistically showing animals’ uncanny ability to master the art of vehicle navigation, you might find Shively engaged in automotive art — specifically, pin-striping and lettering vintage vehicles. In addition, he has a one-man show at the National Packard Museum in Warren, said Shively, who earned a degree in 1978 from Youngstown State University in commercial art and is self-employed.

For his piece, Shively received the Butler’s first Jean Shreffler Award, named after the late Shreffler, who served more than 20 years as the Butler’s librarian and was a museum archivist before her death Nov. 23, 2023. Shreffler was 74.

“We wanted to give this award in her honor,” Susan Carfano, assistant to Louis A. Zona, executive director, said, adding, “She also was a huge animal lover.”

Creative anxiety and tension, a love of figurative and narrative works, an interest in using subliminal and realistic means, and forcing others to engage in a deeper level of thought than what’s presented on the surface all were factors in Josh Long’s creation of “The Annunciation,” a graphite-on-paper piece. It shows a young girl appearing to give something to a skeptical cat, both of which cast sharp shadows that tell part of the interplay between them.

“I knew it would be enduring,” Long, 26, of Columbiana, said.

He noted that the “Annunciation” piece also is symbolic of the angel Gabriel coming to Mary, the biblical story of when God instructs the angel to go to Nazareth to tell Mary she will conceive and give birth to Jesus Christ.

For his efforts, Long received first-place honors.

Long added that he also has a strong interest in dramatic Baroque paintings that often teach or tell stories from the Bible to those who may be illiterate. Many of them are “rich with symbolism,” he said.

Long, who also is the Butler’s chief preparator, attended Mount Vernon Nazarene University in Mount Vernon, originally to study business then, after one semester, switched his major before earning a degree in fine art. He also had delved in performing camera and design work “before I fell in love with painting and drawing,” Long recalled.

“I did a lot of creative things, but I didn’t know why I was doing them,” he said.

By contrast, Sophie Lynch, 19, of Champion, knew full well why she did the creative thing of making a watercolor piece she titled “Alyssa.”

“She is one of my best friends. I was inspired by this, and a trip we took to Maine, where we were on a sailboat for one week,” Lynch said, referring in part to her friend, Alyssa Burnett, who she befriended five or six years ago after the two had met in a faith-based group.

Burnett’s positive attitude and outlook, especially in handling difficult times, along with her compassion and overall friendship, went into creating the watercolor piece that depicts a peaceful looking, wavy-haired Alyssa underwater and surrounded by fish and bubbles. More broadly, the work captures Lynch’s appreciation for nature and her “crazy adventure” in Maine, she said.

A key ancillary influence on Lynch’s piece was her father, who inspired her with his sketches and doodles — along with watercolor classes she had taken at the Butler, Lynch explained.

Another major exhibit the Butler Institute of American Art is hosting alongside the Area Artist Annual is “The Audacity of the Mundane,” by Charlee Brodsky, a Pittsburgh-based fine-art and documentary photographer who’s also a professor emeritus of photography at Carnegie Mellon University. The exhibit, which opened Dec. 22, runs through March 2.