Festival Judges

Professor David Ribar,
Belmont University Art Department

Professor David Ribar has a BFA from Murray State University and a MFA from the University of Cincinnati. Ribar began his career in the arts in 1979 as the Preparator/Exhibitions Designer at the Cheekwood Museum of Art in Nashville. Before joining Belmont in 1991, he also served for five years as Cheekwood's Curator of Exhibitions. He has worked as a consultant, juror, panelist and lecturer for arts organizations and schools throughout the region, and has published numerous articles of art criticism for local and regional publications. His most recent essay appears in the Instructor's Manual accompanying the 8th Edition of Living with Art. He has also shown in juried, invitational, and one-person exhibitions throughout the United States, with works found in a variety of private and public art collections. In addition to his pursuit of the art of teaching, Ribar has completed a two-year term as Interim Chair of the Art Department, and has been engaged as the Co-Director of the Belmont in Italy Program for the last seven years.

Jochen Wierich,
Curator of Art at Cheekwood

Jochen Wierich was born near Duesseldorf, Germany, and came to the United States for museum work and graduate school. He has been the Curator of Art at Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art for the last two years. He received his Ph.D. in American Studies at The College of William & Mary. Wierich has taught art history at Vanderbilt University and Whitman College. Besides Cheekwood, he worked in curatorial positions at the Terra Museum of American Art and the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture in Spokane. Exhibitions that he has organized include Enchanted Visions: The Taos Society of Artists & Ancient Cultures and Painters of American Life: The Eight. He is co-editor of the forthcoming anthology Internationalizing the History of American Art.