Arrow Electronics Names Winner of Cherry Creek Arts Festival Five Years Out Art Challenge
Arrow Electronics selected Jan R. Carson’s textile artwork, “See as Bees See” as the winner of this year’s Cherry Creek Arts Festival’s Five Years Out Art Challenge.
The juried international art contest inspires professional artists to explore the notion of innovation and express what Five Years Out looks like through their medium. For Arrow, Five Years Out is the tangible future of new technologies, new materials and new ideas that help customers, partners and employees merge what’s possible with what’s practical.
Carson’s work honors Arrow’s collaboration with the technology firm Semios to fight pests in fruit and nut crops with data-driven farming solutions that eliminate pesticides. Carson stitched together pieces of silk and paired them with LED lights to reveal colors only seen by bees. The piece was selected from 135 submissions, and Carson received an additional $10,000 prize and a jury-exempt invitation to exhibit at the 2019 Festival.
“The challenge draws a talented field of artists who embrace innovation in their interpretations of Five Years Out,” said Leda Abrams, Arrow’s global events director and Cherry Arts board member. “Each of the finalists submitted forward-thinking work, but Carson’s piece creatively combined textiles and LED lights to demonstrate that innovation often requires seeing the world in a new way.”
Arrow also awarded Carson and the following six finalists a $5,000 commission to create and showcase their piece at the 2018 Cherry Creek Arts Festival, July 6-8 in Denver, Colo., after which the art will become part of the Arrow collection and installed at its offices.
- Brice McCasland, “Into the Sunlight and Begin a New Day”
- Collin Parson, “TLP#1 (Traveling Light Project)”
- William Kidd, “Universal Smile”
- Keith Grace, “A Lie Can Travel Halfway Around the World While the Truth Is Putting on Its Shoes”
- Signe and Genna Grushovenko, “Home of the Future”
- Kina Crow, “Riding the Wave of the Future”
Every year, Arrow engages in a number of cultural initiatives that inspire people to be more creative and productive in their own lives. Arrow has partnered with the Cherry Creek Arts Festival on the Five Years Out Art Challenge since 2013.
About the Cherry Creek Arts Festival
The Cherry Creek Arts Festival is a three-day, world-class and award-winning celebration of the visual, culinary, and performing arts and enjoys an annual attendance of 350,000 visitors. Special exhibits, art and culinary demonstrations, and interactive family activities on Activity Avenue complement the Festival experience. Since 1991, the CherryArts 501(c)(3) nonprofit mission provides access to arts experiences and supports art education via the Cherry Creek Arts Festival and statewide education programs. For more information, please visit www.CherryArts.org.
About Arrow Electronics
Arrow Electronics guides innovation forward for over 150,000 of the world’s leading manufacturers of technology used in homes, business and daily life. With 2017 sales of $26.6 billion, Arrow aggregates electronics and enterprise computing solutions for customers and suppliers in industrial and commercial markets. The company maintains a network of more than 345 locations serving over 80 countries. Learn more at FiveYearsOut.com.
