For anyone who has seen one of Robert Arneson's Eggheads on the UC Davis campus and chuckled, here's a chance to create your own art with Arneson in mind by entering a digital photo contest.

The community is invited to create a photo involving any of the famed ceramic artist's seven Egghead creations on campus. Two first-place winners (one category for students and one for staff, faculty and others) will receive a $200 gift certificate to the UC Davis Bookstore. Second-place awards will include a $100 gift certificate to the bookstore.

Contestants are asked to submit a photo by March 2 to http://eggheads.ucdavis.edu. Entries may be unaltered photos, collages, "Photoshopped" or altered through some other approach. They may be created individually or by a team.

Photos should be taken with a camera of at least three megapixels resolution (no cell phones). Please use your camera's native, or default, resolution. This is usually the maximum resolution offered. Photo entries must be uploaded in JPEG format; no more than six megabytes in file size. Set compression (in your camera and in your photo-editing software) to minimum so you get maximum image quality.

Judging will be based on originality, innovation and humor. More contest rules are included on the submission Web site at http://eggheads.ucdavis.edu/submit_photo.php.

"Bob Arneson believed that art should interact with everyday life," says Nelson Art Gallery Director Renny Pritikin. "He wanted art that everyone would understand and enjoy. Maybe that's why the Eggheads are the most photographed objects on campus."

Contest judges include Pritikin of the Nelson Art Gallery; Larry Bogad, UC Davis Theatre and Dance; and Annabeth Rosen, the Robert Arneson Chair in Ceramic Sculpture, UC Davis Art and Art History.

The contest is sponsored by the UC Davis Department of Art and Art History; Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies; Nelson Art Gallery; and University Communications.

Considered by many as the leading figure in the movement of ceramics into the fine arts, Arneson is known for his sardonic work that can be found in galleries and museums across the nation, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

UC Davis' own reputation as having one of the best graduate art schools in the nation is based on half a century of inspiring faculty -- talented artists, such as early members Arneson, Wayne Thiebaud and William Wiley, who have also loved teaching the next generation.

A member of the UC Davis art faculty from 1962 until his death in 1992, Arneson was commissioned to create an art series in 1989 by the UC Davis Art in Public Places work group. The campus Eggheads are actually editions, since the series is owned by the Arneson estate.

For more information, contact Susanne Rockwell, University Communications, (530) 752-9841, sgrockwell@ucdavis.edu.