Remember in grade school when everyone got a "participant" ribbon just for showing up at the sack races? The same spirit of inclusive banality animates the State Fair art show this year. There are prize winners and some very good art, indeed, but the competition is so lackluster that the show is an embarrassment in a state that once mustered up real talent every August.

Nine judges, including several museum curators, picked the 413 pieces on display -- paintings, photos, sculpture and six other categories including jewelry, a new genre -- from 2,157 entries. Without seeing the rejects, it's impossible to know how ably they did their job, but an experienced eye will tell you that many Twin Cities galleries regularly display more dynamic, original and engaging items. The judges' choices are big on cute and cozy stuff -- kids and barnyard animals, drowsy landscapes, boating interludes, pictures of fish, flowers and veggies. These noble and much-loved themes are best sampled with restraint. Rounding a corner and finding a whole wall of Holstein cows and Hampshire hogs is a bit much, even for fans of black-and-white, cross-species design.

The jurors' penchant for fair critters and scenes may well mirror the preoccupations of the entrants, but the result is a clichéd and condescending exhibit. Surely the Robbinsdale artist who called himself Mr. Cow was testing the judges when he submitted "Friends," a posterish painting of a grinning Chester White in sunglasses nosing up to a worm, also wearing shades, perched on a purple rock watched by a bluebird in a sunlit meadow under puffy lavender clouds. Perhaps that sweetie merited its "honorable mention" as a satire on fair art, but cute jokes about silly art still occupy space that could have been taken by good art. Ditto for Kate Renee Johnson's big pink hippo sticking out its turquoise tongue.

Art is a big tent these days, but the inclusion of folk craft in the fine art show compounds the muddle. Zina Emanuele Balbo's detailed cross-section of a tooth rendered in bitsy little beads and seeds is a dubious cultural crossover. Likewise, the bas relief version of Leonardo's "Last Supper" that Jim Jewell of Long Prairie pieced together from wood is an eye-catching curio that suffers a severe deficit of originality.

Happy talk

But let's accentuate the positive. The show opens with "Fair and Fowl," a prize-winning photo by Nathan Viste-Ross of Minneapolis, who captured a straw-hatted woman gazing dolefully at an amazing rooster. A truly magnificent creature, the caged bird appears to be at least 3 feet tall with sharp eyes, a flaming comb and wattles, golden feet and glorious russet wings tinged with blue and black. By chance the woman's blue shift and long reddish hair are the same hue as the bird's plumage, enhancing the sympathetic aura that seems to surround them. In "Winners," John Gregor Mihelic, also of Minneapolis, shot a tender and genuinely winning image of a sleeping teen nestled into the warm shoulder of his Holstein.

While many of the landscapes seem generic, Brian Stewart of St. Paul conveyed the distinctive urban bustle and the otherworldly tranquility of "The Peace Gardens," as he called his impressionistic painting of the lush plots that perch improbably at the juncture of Interstate 94 and Hiawatha Avenue southeast of downtown Minneapolis.

Watercolors are always a strong suit in Minnesota, and John Salminen of Duluth rightly took first prize for his "North Beach Hotel," with its subtle juxtaposition of seedy buildings and modern urban architecture. Janet Flom of Moorhead effectively portrayed a moody musician slumped at the piano, and Heide Nelson of White Bear Lake essayed a delightfully lively portrait of "Jessie." With its light, shadows, crystal bowl and rainbow of colored pencils, "Studio Bouquet," by Catherine Hearding of Lake Elmo, is another watercolor masterpiece.

In his "New American Gothic" drawing, Paul E. Murphy of Minneapolis successfully turned Grant Wood's iconic Iowans into contemporary political commentary by depicting them as camouflaged militants toting high-powered rifles as helicopters buzz their burning house. Jane Christine Fisher of St. Louis Park drew an admirably understated ear of "Field Corn" and Sheryl A. McRoberts of Plymouth spent a very worthwhile day sketching a decaying factory at Rainy River on the Canadian border.

Keeping faith

Religious themes were a notable development this year. In "Tolls of Violence: Tribute to Demond Reed," Vigee Blue of Minneapolis sensitively depicted angels lifting a dead child. Jennifer Ann Soriano of New Brighton portrayed "Esther" as an attractive art nouveau figure, and Justin Terlecki of St. Paul rightly claimed first prize for his keenly observed lithograph of a contemporary religious festival swirling through the ancient Spanish city of Seville.

Beaders dominated the small jewelry category, weaving amazingly complex necklaces from thousands of minuscule glass balls and tubes. The prize-winning "January Dawn," a frosty-looking collar of opalescent beads by Marsha Lynn Wiest-Hines of Minnetonka, is a showstopper.

Inexplicably, two of the finest entries in the ceramics/glass category went unrecognized: a lovely silvery-blue glass vase by Fred Kaemmer of St. Paul and an impossibly complicated but elegantly simple, Slinky-like earthenware sculpture by Mary Roettger, also of St. Paul.

Too much of the sculpture is of the Tinkertoy variety -- little tableaux and odd whatnots composed of bits of wood or lumps of metal stuck together in hapless efforts to tell moralizing stories in 3D. This behavior should not be encouraged, although Brian Leo of Richfield gets a shout-out for aptly titling his blobs and squiggles "Assembled Bronze, You Know, Assembled, Sort Of."

Still, it's impossible not to applaud the judges' decision to present a merit award to Paul Tierney for his way-over-life-sized welded steel sculpture of a moose head that dominates the showroom. "The Moose" may be crazy and kitsch, but it's so Minnesotan.

Mary Abbe • 612-673-4431

AWARD WINNERS First prize: Anne S. DeCoster, Marine on St. Croix, painting; Jerry Allen Dercks, Minneapolis, sculpture; Douglas A. Garder, Brooklyn Center, drawing; Tracy J. Herlache, South St. Paul, textiles; Barbara Benson Keith, Lanesboro, ceramics/glass; John Salminen, Duluth, watercolor; Justin Terlecki, St. Paul, prints; Nathan Viste-Ross, Minneapolis, photography; Marsha Lynn Wiest-Hines, jewelry.

Second prize: Allen Barker, Hopkins, sculpture; Rhiannon Fish, Minneapolis, jewelry; Patricia Ann Haynes, Minneapolis, ceramics/glass; Ochen Kaylan, Minneapolis, drawing; Jennifer Ann Soriano, New Brighton, painting; Aaron C. Squadroni, Minneapolis, drawing; Miles Taylor, Minneapolis, photography; Rebecca J. Utecht, Mora, textiles. Carol Wold, Stillwater, watercolor.

Third prize: Allison L. Bohlke, Minneapolis, ceramics/glass; Jean P. Erickson, Hopkins, jewelry; Stephen James Gates, Stillwater, drawing/pastel; Jeffery S. Gauss, St. Louis Park, painting; Erika L. Hagberg, Crosby, textiles; Kerri Jamison, Minneapolis, photography; Jeanne M. Long, Minneapolis, watercolor; Denise M. Rouleau, Minneapolis, sculpture; Kurt Alan Seaberg, Minneapolis, prints.