The people and the critics were of one mind for the recent Visual Arts Society of Texas exhibit. The society’s 36th annual Juried Fine Arts Award Exhibition closed at the end of May at the Center for the Visual Arts. The society waits until the show closes to announce the People’s Choice Award.

This year, voters agreed with juror. They named Marlys Lamar’s oil painting, Not Knowing When the Dawn Will Come, I Open Every Door, their favorite of the show.

Lamar picked up a $100 cash prize for the popular prize on top of the $1,000 award she received for winning Best of Show.

"I am honored," Lamar said. "I didn’t find out until I came to pick up my painting."

Not Knowing is painted on layers of wood. A small figure is depicted asleep, under the covers of a small bed. Her back is to the viewer, and she sleeps in a dark room, under three windows. The dawn is breaking outside the windows, and lush fields bend and twist in the distance.

Dark water frames the work.

The painting was inspired by Lamar’s 13-year-old daughter, Simone Carter.

"We were on a vacation in Maryland several years ago," Lamar said in a previous interview. "I got up really early and walked by the room where my daughter was sleeping. She was sleeping on this cot under a window and I could see the crops. I thought the way they curved around sort of followed the line of her body as she was sleeping. I though: ‘I’ve got to capture this moment.’ So I grabbed my camera and took a picture."

She held onto the photo for several years before she finally painted it.

Lamar has a gift for painting light. Not Knowing is painted so that light appears to be coming through the center window, falling onto the figure and moving out toward the viewer. It’s a meditative piece, and after she won the Best of Show award, Lamar said she did intend to provoke viewers. Water is a recurring theme, and is a metaphor for the unknown in the painting. The windows, the bed, the sleep also represent different realities that the human animal either occupies or tries to reach in an abstract way.

"A lot of people have said they think the painting is about dreaming, but I wasn’t thinking specifically about dreaming, though the dream world is a reality," she said.

Lamar started drawing as a high school student, but decided not to pursue art. She attended the University of North Texas, where she earned a doctorate. She’s a psychologist specializing in marriage and family therapy, but also has dealt with post-traumatic stress and eating disorders in her practice.

Her business was in Carrollton for 15 years before she relocated to Denton, where she lives with her daughter and her husband, Steve Carter.

She began painting about 10 years ago, starting with a mini course in drawing and sketching before studying more seriously. She joined the visual arts society, and made it into the juried show two years ago.

These are her first two awards.

Patrons of the annual show vote by ballot. Society officials count the ballots the final day of the exhibit.

Lamar said Not Knowing has been a success, but the artist is forging ahead with new work.

"People seem to respond to it," she said. "I just feel very honored, and I love all this feedback. You don’t get that very often."

LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877.