Artist Choice Show coming to Art Center

MOUNT CLEMENS — One of the showcase staples of the Anton Art Center is set to return this September.

Starting Sept. 2, the Anton Art Center will host its annual Artist Choice Show on its first-floor gallery. Featuring 53 works of art by 44 artists, the show serves to showcase the best works from members of five regional arts organizations.

“We collaborate with five different groups across Macomb County,” said Stephanie Hazzard, the AAC’s exhibition manager. “The Warren Tri-County Fine Arts, the Lakeside Palette Club of St. Clair Shores, the Mount Clemens Art Association, the Romeo Guild of Art and the Shelby Township Fine Art Society.”

The Artist Choice Show is the second annual show hosted by the Anton Art Center for the five groups, the first being a themed show.

“The first show usually has a theme as something for the artists to be inspired by, to communicate with or to comment on,” Hazzard said. “The second show, the Artist Choice Show, has no theme and so artists are eligible to enter artwork of any theme and also of any medium. Guests will see artworks that span across fiber works to classic clay, drawing, painting, mixed media and so forth … Many people celebrate the themed show as a challenge to adhere more to a specific theme, but this show gives artists the chance to share the work they’re the most passionate about.”

The 2025 edition of the Artist Choice Show sees several notable developments for the event. Moving the show to the first-floor gallery means there’s more space for artwork, with the 53 works being selected coming from a record-setting 126 submissions. Whittling down the submissions to what would fit within the gallery was left to juror Martine MacDonald, a multimedia artist and instructor at Wayne County Community College District.

In the second-floor gallery starting on Saturday, Sept. 6, the exhibition “Works by Christina Haylett” will present a collection of new and old work from the titular Oakland Township-based artist.

Picking up an interest in art from an early age and attending the College for Creative Studies in the 1970s, Haylett’s passion for art took on a new level once she retired. In the years since retirement, she focused on painting, but over the past five years Haylett has shifted her work to incorporate nonconventional and recycled materials.

“I’m 75 years old and I’ve been thinking a lot about current events and things that are happening now and how things are being recycled,” Haylett said. “The recycling pieces, in a way, were an attempt to use things that are here now and reconfigure them into something different. The clay pieces, I started doing those because … working three-dimensionally with your hands is a whole different feeling and it’s given me a whole different perspective on my work. It’s like playing.”

The shift in Haylett’s work comes from a change in attitude toward approaching the world, a change coming in no small part from her age.

“I think now being older, in the last couple of years I just feel a lot freer to do what I want to do,” Haylett said. “I don’t feel the constraints on me about whether I should be doing something that’s current or trendy. I just feel like my artwork now is more of a representation of me.”

The opening reception for “Works by Christina Haylett” and an artist talk with Haylett will be held on Saturday, Sept. 13 from 1-3 p.m.

“I hope (the exhibit) is not boring,” Haylett said. “That would be my hope, that people will be entertained by it.”

Both exhibits will run at the Anton Art Center though Thursday, Oct. 16. The Anton Art Center is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Admission is free. For more information visit theartcenter.org.