Hartford, CT (May 17, 2010) -- The Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism (CCT) has awarded FY10 fellowships to 37 artists to support their continuing artistic development and creation of new work.

Grants in the amounts of $5,000 and $2,500 were awarded in the categories of craft, new media, painting, photography, sculpture/installation and works on paper. The single review criterion was artistic merit.

The 2010 Artist Fellowship recipients are as follows:

Discipline	Name	City	Amount
Craft	Dean, Chotsani	Hartford	$5,000
Craft	Throop, Thomas	Norwalk	$5,000
Craft	McKee, Roger	Lakeville	$2,500
Craft	Pan, Jeffrey	Stonington	$2,500
New Media	Efemoff, Ted	West Hartford	$5,000
New Media	Lee, Eva	Ridgefield	$2,500
New Media	Pentland, Joseph	Bridgeport	$5,000
New Media	Wollensak, Andrea	Mystic	$2,500
Painting	Lage, Janet	Old Lyme	$2,500
Painting	Bracken, Donald	West Cornwall	$2,500
Painting	Bruckmann, Frank	New Haven	$2,500
Painting	Guarino, Brad	New London	$5,000
Painting	Huckins, Shawn	Middletown	$2,500
Painting	Kuester-Witt, Kristina	Woodbridge	$5,000
Painting	Lewis, Nathan	Seymour	$2,500
Painting	Shirley, Blake	Manchester	$5,000
Painting	Sobel, Kim	Glastonbury	$2,500
Photography	Buttrey, Daniel	Coventry	$2,500
Photography	Johnson, Keith	Hamden	$2,500
Photography	French, Marguerite	Enfield	$2,500
Photography	Goodrich, Nancy	Portland	$5,000
Photography	Kernan, Sean	Branford	$2,500
Photography	Savoia, Mark	New Fairfield	$2,500
Photography	York, Torrance	New Canaan	$5,000
Sculpture/Installation	Weber, Matthew	Unionville	$2,500
Sculpture/Installation	ALFEN, Matthias	Norwalk	$2,500
Sculpture/Installation	Classen-Sullivan, Susan	Canterbury	$2,500
Sculpture/Installation	Cubberly, Anne	Hartford	$2,500
Sculpture/Installation	McCrady, Lady	New Haven	$2,500
Sculpture/Installation	Saliter, Karl	Cornwall Bridge	$2,500
Sculpture/Installation	Vaters-Carr, Rachael	New Haven	$2,500
Sculpture/Installation	Walsh, Elizabeth	Trumbull	$2,500
Works on Paper	Carrigan, Patricia	East Granby	$2,500
Works on Paper	Hwang, Insook	New Haven	$5,000
Works on Paper	Lewis, Martha	New Haven	$5,000
Works on Paper	Rysz, Ronnie	New Haven	$5,000
Works on Paper	Smith, Cary	Farmington	$5,000

Panels of experts in their respective fields reviewed the works of 401 applicants during this highly competitive process. Panelists included:

CRAFT
Gretchen Keyworth is the Director Emeritus and Chief Curator at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, MA and has served as director or advisor for several prominent craft shows.  Hannah Niswonger is a Massachusetts artist who creates functional and sculptural ceramic pieces.  She received her MFA in ceramic sculpture from Alfred University in Alfred, New York and has taught ceramics at Harvard University and MassArt in Boston.

NEW MEDIA
George Fifield is a media arts curator, writer, teacher and artist. He is the founder and director of Boston Cyberarts Inc. and currently teaches in the Digital Media program at Rhode Island School of Design.  Paul Myoda is Professor of Visual Arts at Brown University in Rhode Island and received his MFA from Yale University.  He co-created the Tribute in Light, in memory of the tragic events of 9/11, which has since become an annual installation.  Ari Tabei is a video and performance artist who received her MFA from the University of Connecticut and is currently an artist-in-residence at Smack Mellon Studio.

PAINTING
Bob Dilworth is a professor at the University of Rhode Island where he teaches painting, drawing and African-American art history and paints primarily large-scale portraits and figurative works. Yana Payusova was classically trained as a painter at the St. Petersburg Fine Art Lyceé.  She later immigrated to the US and currently lives in Boston and exhibits her work both nationally and internationally.  Amy Ingrid Schlegel is the director of the galleries and collections at Tufts University.  She earned her PhD in Art History from Columbia University and, prior to Tufts, she was the curator at the Philadelphia Art Alliance.

PHOTOGRAPHY
Viera Levitt is the director of the Knight Campus Gallery in Rhode Island and has curated or co-curated more than thirty exhibitions in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, and the USA.  Annu Palakunnathu Matthew is Professor of Art in Photography at the University of Rhode Island.  Her work is included in the book Blink which celebrates the quality and vision of today’s 100 most exciting international contemporary photographers.  Charles A. Meyer is a photographer and Adjunct Associate Professor of Photography at Boston College and has worked with films such as the PBS television specials Civil War and Baseball by Ken Burns.

SCULPTURE / INSTALLATION
Ming Fay is a sculptor from New York with several site-specific public art installations around the country and has exhibited his installations nationally as well as internationally.  Xander Marro is Managing Director at AS220, a non-profit community arts space in Providence, RI and is an artist working in performance, filmmaking, installation, silkscreen and quiltmaking among others.  Jane South’s work has been exhibited throughout the US and abroad and was a recipient of the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant in 2008.  Her work has recently been featured in such publications as ARTnews, The New York Times and Artforum.

WORKS ON PAPER
Barbara Madsen is Assistant Professor of Printmaking at Rutgers University in New Jersey and received a grant from the Puffin Foundation in 2005.  Her work includes photogravure, public billboard projects, and installations that involve floor vinyl and wallpaper.  William Villalongo is an artist from New York who has exhibited at the Studio Museum in Harlem and PS1 Contemporary Art Center among other locations.  His work is in several collections and has received numerous awards and recognition.  Neal Walsh is the gallery director and curator at AS220, a non-profit community arts space in Providence, RI.  He is also and artist and is currently creating a print archive program at AS220.

About Artist Fellowship Program
The Fellowship program awards grants on an alternating annual basis. The categories listed above were recognized this year with the categories of choreography, fiction, film/video, music composition, playwriting and poetry in the alternating year.  More information about the fiscal year 2011 Artist Fellowship program will be available in the summer of 2010 at www.cultureandtourism.org.  Check our website for updates.

About the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism
The Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism brings together tourism, history and the arts. Its mission is to preserve and promote Connecticut’s cultural and tourism assets in order to enhance the quality of life and economic vitality of the state. The Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism is located at One Constitution Plaza, Second Floor, Hartford, Connecticut.  For more information, log on to www.cultureandtourism.org.

Contacts:

Karen Senich
Executive Director
Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism
(860) 256-2727 (Leigh Johnson)

An-Ming Truxes
Arts Division Director
Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism
(860) 256-2722