Artist and avid hiker Gail Bergeron found inspiration for her winning Alabama Spring Art Contest and Exhibit piece from a hike in the Bankhead Forest.

With dramatic strokes and colors, she captured a bolder nestled in the woods and titled it “Bold Bolder.” Bergeron, who recently retired as an art professor at Athens State University, received first place in the exhibit.

“The scene spoke to me,” she said. “As I painted I could remember the detail, the beauty.”

Athens Arts League sponsored the annual contest and exhibit, and the Alabama Bicentennial Commission endorsed it as a bicentennial event for 2019. The public can view the exhibit at High Cotton Arts in Downtown Athens through May 1.

“Each artist has a creative perspective on depicting the beauty of spring time in Alabama, and this exhibit showcases the attributes of Mother Nature from the coastal beaches to the farm fields of North Alabama,” said Athens Arts League Vice President Diane Lehr.

An independent panel of judges chose a rolling storm painting that Tom Young created for second place. For third place, the panel chose a pointillism piece that Diane Hart created with iconic state sites from a lighthouse to a fish to the yellowhammer, the state bird.

The Athens Arts League Board presented Board Choice Awards to Dianne Craig, for an originally designed quilt called “May Flowers,” and to Travis Fleming, for forging a ring entitled “Spring Metalmorphosis.”

High Cotton Arts is located at 103. W. Washington Street. The public can view the winning pieces in the gallery windows and other pieces inside the art incubator. High Cotton Arts is open to the public Wednesday through Saturday.

Contest winners

• First place: Gail Bergeron, “Bold Bolder”;

• Second place: Tom Young, “Spring Storm”;

• Third place: Dianne Hart, “Alabama Spring Memories”;

• Board Choice Award: Dianne Craig, “May Flowers”; and

• Board Choice Award: Travis Fleming, “Spring Metalmorphosis”

Honorable mentions

• Kathy Shafer, “Spring Excitement”;

• Tanae R. AtLee “Spring Pendant”;

• Whitney Tomlin, ”Cotton Wagon in the Spring”;

• Sonya Gordon, “Bumble on the Bramble”;

• Gary Anderson,”Young Rabbit”; and

• Michie Mooney, “Backyard Sitting.”