Visual Arts Fellowship

2013 VISUAL ARTS FELLOWSHIPS ANNOUNCED!

Winners of the WAC 2013 Visual Arts Fellowships were announced March 2, 2013 at the CLICK! conference. For those of you who missed the festivities, the winners are:

• Brian Haberman, Cheyenne
• Abbie Miller, Jackson
• Susan Thulin, Jackson

Honorable mentions were awarded to: June Glasson and Diana Baumbach, both of Laramie, Jennifer Hoffman of Jackson and Suzanne Morlock of Wilson.

Congratulations to you all!  See you (and your work) at the fall biennial show in Casper.

Past winners and Biennial Fellowship exhibitions.

What is a Visual Arts Fellowship?

Visual Arts fellowships are awards of merit, based on the artist’s portfolio, honoring the work of Wyoming visual artists whose work reflects serious and exceptional investigation. Artists working in any media, including film and video, may apply. Applications are juried by noted artists from outside the state. Up to three fellowships may be given each year, and jurors may also select honorable mentions.

Recipients of the visual arts fellowships exhibit their work in the Wyoming Arts Council Biennial Exhibit, held every two years at a major visual arts institution in state. The exhibit is curated by one of the jurors, who serves on the panel for two years. See the Biennial Fellowship Exhibition page for a list of past recipients.

Eligibility

• Must be at least 18 years of age
• Must have been domiciled within the state borders for a total of 20 months in the previous two years
• Must be a U.S. citizen or have legal resident status (evidence of U.S. citizenship, resident status and state residency may be required).
• Must register with the Artist Image Registry
• May not be affiliated with the Wyoming Arts Council either as a board member or staff member, including their families, whether full-time, part-time or contractual.
• May not be an employee of the Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources.
• Must remain a Wyoming resident for at least one year after award, living in the state for at least 10 months of the year
• Must not have received a fellowship within the last four years
• May receive a total of two fellowship awards in their lifetime

 How to Apply

Applications are accepted through CaFE, an online platform which is free to artists. The call is named Wyoming Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowships, and usually comes up at the end of the calls list. You can search by name. Artists may prepare for the application at any time during the year by setting up a profile and adding images of their work to their profile. These images can be added to your application when the time comes. CaFE has very specific guidelines for images, and WAC recommends giving yourself plenty of time to make sure you can adjust the images appropriately. Applicants are also requested to provide an artists statement and a resume.

Jurors for 2013

Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Roxbury MA
Napoleon Jones-Henderson describes himself as an “Artist, Educator, Activist, and Citizen of the Universe.” He works with a variety of materials to create large sculptures that reflect the African-American experience. He attended the Sorbonne in Paris, received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Art Institute of Chicago and completed his graduate studies at Northern Illinois University. He is a founding member of Africobra, one of the most important visual arts collectives to come out of the Chicago Black Arts Movement. He is founder of the Napoleon Jones-Henderson Research Institute of African and African Diaspora Arts in Roxbury, Mass. He has received the Mayor of Boston Award of Recognition for Outdoor Sculpture Exhibit, the Massachusetts State Senate Citation for Cultural Excellence, and an Award of Excellence from the National Conference of Artists. He has taught in the art departments of several American institutions, including Malcolm X College in Chicago, Massachusetts College of Art, Emerson College in Boston and Benedict College in Columbia, S.C. “My work in its essence is spiritual; meaning-full,” Jones-Henderson says. “We must be about the business of expressing what is beautiful — ourselves.”

Daniel Mills, Lewiston ME

Artist Dan Mills has been directing academic museums for twenty years and curating exhibitions since the late 1980s. He is Director of the Bates College Museum of Art and Lecturer in the Humanities in Lewiston, Maine. There, he brings a world of ideas to campus by presenting exhibitions with an international focus and connecting them to curriculum across campus, making them accessible to neighboring communities and to the vibrant arts scene of the state of Maine. Exhibitions he has curated have been presented at institutions in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, and throughout the US.

Mills has had recent solo shows at the Chicago Cultural Center and Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Museum, and Sherry Frumkin Gallery in Santa Monica, and group shows throughout the US. Selected collections include the British Library, London; Harvard University, JPMorgan Chase, New York; Library of Congress, John D. & Catherine C. MacArthur Foundation, Chicago; and University of California, Los Angeles. His US Future States Atlas was published as a book by Perceval Press in 2009.

He is also active in the field as a frequent lecturer, juror, guest critic, curator, and catalogue contributor, and is board member of the Association of Academic Museums and Galleries (AAMG).

Marjorie Vecchio, Reno NV

Marjorie Vecchio, PhD is an independent curator and from 2006-2012 was the Director of Sheppard Fine Arts Gallery, University of Nevada, Reno. Since 1999, she has curated over 40 exhibitions, worked with over 250 artists, published 20 scholars, philosophers, writers and poets in 25 catalogues, and has written over 20 catalogue essays. In 2009 she won the inaugural Scholar-in-Residency at Columbus State University, Georgia to work for a semester on her forthcoming book, The Films of Claire Denis: Intimacy on the Border (Summer 2013, IB Tauris: London). Before becoming a curator, Vecchio was a photographic installation artist. She exhibited throughout America, as well as in Germany, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. She won numerous awards for her work, was a studio assistant to Polly Apfelbaum, and taught photography and philosophy for numerous years in Chicago and Austria. She has degrees from Mount Holyoke College (BA), The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (BFA), Bard College (MFA), and European Graduate School (PhD, Magna Cum Laude).