Columbus, Ohio – The Greater Columbus Arts Council (GCAC) and theColumbus Museum of Art (CMA) are pleased to announce the recipients 2011 Visual Arts Fellowship awards.
The following 2011 Visual Arts Fellowship recipients were chosen from 99 applicants: Suzanne Silver (3D), Laura Sanders (2D), Robert Metzger (Photography) and Carol Snyder (Craft). Awards were based on the artistic merit of works submitted in the disciplines of Craft, 2- and 3-D Visual Arts and Photography. Each Fellowship recipient will receive $5,000 and be featured in an exhibition hosted by the Columbus Museum of Art in the spring of 2012. The CMA exhibition will also feature the artists selected for the Dresden Exchange program.
The 2011 Visual Arts Fellowship recipient bios:
Robert Metzger
Metzger holds a BFA in photography and has worked in the abstract for more than 20 years, creating and exhibiting photographs and video in galleries, museums and on the World Wide Web. His work is found in public and private collections both here and abroad, and he has achieved numerous grants and awards including Individual Artist Fellowship Grants from the Greater Columbus Arts Council in 2002 and from the Ohio Arts Council in 1990 and 2002. Metzger’s history in the public arts community encompasses curatorial experience, administration and development with profit and non-profit environments and institutions.
Laura Sanders
Sanders, a Dayton-area native, has been a Columbus resident since attending the Columbus College of Art & Design in the mid-‘80s. A 2008 Ohio Arts Council residency in Provincetown, MA inspired a continued interest in water as a subject in her paintings. Sanders work has been featured in the Midwest edition of New American Paintings, annual curated exhibition in print. Sanders has received a number of honors and awards including the 2010 Honor Award for the Inspiring Figures Exhibition at the Butler Institute of Art in Youngstown, OH and a 2009 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. Sanders served as a juror for the Columbus Arts Festival in 2010.
Suzanne Silver
Silver lives and works in Columbus. She is assistant professor in the painting & drawing program of the Department of Art at The Ohio State University. Silver studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and received a BA from Smith College and an MFA at The Ohio State University. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally, including the Axel Raben Gallery in NYC, Nexus Contemporary Art Center in Atlanta, Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, Michlelet David Yellin in Jerusalem, the Castle of Otranto in Otranto, Italy and The Bureau for Open Culture.
Carol Snyder
Snyder received her BFA from the Columbus College of Art & Design in 1985. She worked in arts administration for eight years and began teaching workshops and summer art camps while raising her two children. Since her children are grown, she has renewed focus on her artistic vision. She began making her porcelain works public by exhibiting at art shows in 2007. Snyder received First Place at the 2007 Upper Arlington Labor Days Arts Festival, and the 2008 Ohio Arts Council Professional Award at the Ohio State Fair Fine Arts Exhibition. She was selected as the 2009 Artist in Residence for Columbus’ Wellington School’s 13th Annual Art Premiere. Most recently, she was awarded First Place for the 2010 Upper Arlington Labor Day Arts Festival and Best of Show at the 2010 Penrod Arts Festival at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
GCAC’s Arts Fellowships program, established in 1986, recognizes outstanding Franklin County artists. Since the inception of the program, more than 140 artists have received awards in a variety of disciplines, including visual arts, crafts, film and video, creative writing, music composition and choreography/movement arts. GCAC’s program is one of the few local fellowship programs in the country.
GCAC would also like to congratulate the finalists for the 2011 Visual Artist Fellowship awards in the following categories:
2D: Mary Katherine McCartney, Glenn Tompkins, Jeanie Coy Auseon, Alan R. Crockett, Marc Ross, Thomas M. Kelly, Kevin Benson, Antoinette Savage, Glen Holland, George Rush, Martina Nikova, Nicole Langille Jelsing, Tim Rietenbach, Heather Wirth.
3D: Alissa Sorenson, Andrea Myers, Susan O’Connor, Joshua Penrose, Catherine Bell Smith, M. Candace Black.
Craft: Susan A. Cavanaugh, Shelley Brenner Baird, Marie K. Godwin.
Photography: Jenny Fine, Debbie Rosenfeld, Ardine Nelson, Darlene Yeager-Torre.
The awards, recommended in an anonymous review process by panelists, assist recipients in any manner they choose to support the creation of new works and/or the advancement of their careers. All 2011 recipients and finalists will be invited to apply for GCAC’s Dresden Artists Exchange. Artists who have participated previously in any GCAC exchange program are not eligible to apply.
Members of the 2011 Visual Arts Fellowship panel who reviewed all applications and recommended fellowships were Murray Horne, Curator, Wood Street Gallerie, Dr. Carol Damian, Professor of Art History in the School of Art and Art History and Director of the Patricia and Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University and Jack Risley, Professor in the Department of Sculpture + Extended Media currently serving as the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University.
This year, one of the four fellowships will be made possible through the generosity of Annie’s Fund, a foundation created in honor of surgeon, artist and arts patron Anne Miller. Until her untimely death in 1998, Miller was an established member of the medical community and a dedicated artist specializing in the hand-crafted arts—those created by people with little or no formal training and without regard to the mainstream art world’s recognition or marketplace. This special award celebrates Miller’s commitment to this art form’s visionary quality and the recipient’s work is meant to embody this bold concept. Suzanne Silver received the Annie’s Fund award.
A reception in honor of the 2011 Visual Arts Fellowship recipients will be held in conjunction with the exhibition hosted by the Columbus Museum of Art in the spring of 2012.
For more information contact Ruby Classen, Grants & Services director at rclassen@gcac.org.
About the Greater Columbus Arts Council: Through vision and leadership, advocacy and collaboration, the Greater Columbus Arts Council supports art and advances the culture of the region. A catalyst for excellence and innovation, we fund exemplary artists and arts organizations and provide programs, events and services of public value that educate and engage all audiences in our community. GCAC thanks the City of Columbus, Franklin County, the Ohio Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts for their continued support.
About the Columbus Museum of Art: The Columbus Museum of Art creates great experiences with great art for everyone. The Columbus Foundation, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, Nationwide Foundation, and the Ohio Arts Council provide ongoing support. CMA and the Museum Store are open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM, and until 8:30 PM every Thursday. The Palette Express is open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM. For additional information, call (614) 221-4848 or visit www.columbusmuseum.org.
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CONTACT: Jami Goldstein
(614) 221-8492
jgoldstein@gcac.org
