Summit Artspace, a Knight Arts grantee, has a thing for every now and then coming up with puzzling ideas or themes and challenging artists to make them meaningful. The resultant juried show – for nine years now – is “Fresh Art.”

This year organizers came up with this – do something reflecting on the letter “Q.” As announced, they wanted to call “on regional artists to stretch their creativity and challenge themselves to include or represent Q within their artwork.”

As you might imagine, artists can get a little bogged down with such a notion, especially if there isn’t a great deal of time. In a few cases, it looked (but probably wasn’t) like they did a work in their familiar vein and affixed a Q somewhere.

Others, though, really made it work, stretching the metaphor into everyday life and contemporary culture.

Janet Pahlau, who had one of the best pieces in the exhibit, went religious with her mixed media work called “Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth.” Drenched in Marian blue with splashes of red and loaded with lyrics from hymns to the Mother of God, the assembled work touches upon the iconographic mystery and devotion that informs Pahlau’s theme.

Janet Pahlau, “Mary, Queen of Heaven and Earth.” Photo by Clint Beeler

Taking the religion out of it and focusing more domestically on the topic, Norman Mallard did a lively, clever and amusing smaller-scale collage on the notion of the woman as the royal presence in her home and in the lives of all she knows in “The Queen of Everyone Comes Home.” Homespun bliss thrives as a housewife (with a crown on) talks on the telephone amid a wall of roses – her rose-colored world perfect for the life she means to lead.

Norman Mallard, “The Queen of Everyone Comes Home.” Photo by Cling Beeler

The ever-imaginative Robert Carpenter did a take-off of the tune “Que sera, sera” with a mixed-media assemblage composed of a globe. On the globe, a rod is perched,  supporting a shadow box house in which actress Doris Day, who made the song famous, appears.

Robert Carpenter, “Wishful Thinking.” Photo by Clint Beeler

His notion seems to be “Queen of the Airways,” but which he calls “Wishful Thinking.” It seems to play on notions of how life would be if we could imagine it, rather than how we have to live it sometimes.

These works weren’t the winners in the juried show, but they could have been. Judges Robert Thurmer and Jack McWhorter, picked three winners (Jennifer Jones, Casey Vogt and Paula Singleton, who, among other things, used unusual materials in the creation of their works).

Jennifer Jones, “Don’t Question the Queen in her Castle,” first place abstract piece with oil stick, crayon, pastel and charcoal. Photo by Clint Beeler

“Fresh Art” with the Letter “Q” will be on view 12-9 p.m. Thursday, and 12-5 p.m. Friday and Saturday through April 13 at Summit Artspace, 140 E. Market St., Akron; 330-376-8480; www.akronareaarts.org. Admission is free.