Power of Culture Blog
So Many Traditions, So Little Time
Reflections of a state folklorist
Dan Blask, Program Officer
Mass Cultural Council is honored to announce the 2020 Artist Fellowship awards in Choreography, Fiction/Creative Nonfiction, and Painting. The awards include 18 fellowships of $15,000, and 16 finalist awards of $1,500. See a list of this year’s fellows and finalists, to date.
The awards are anonymously judged, based solely on the artistic quality and creative ability of the work submitted. We received a total of 1,222 applications from artists throughout Massachusetts, including 60 in Choreography, 603 in Fiction/Creative Nonfiction, and 559 in Painting.
This is the second series of Artist Fellowships awards to be given by Mass Cultural Council in 2020. In January 2020, Mass Cultural Council announced awards in Drawing & Printmaking, Poetry, and Traditional Arts.
The Artist Fellowships are part of Mass Cultural Council’s sustained effort to support individual artists with grants and services. We recently distributed 273 grants as part of the COVID-19 Relief Fund for Individuals and 30 grants from the GKV Foundation Fund for Berkshire County Theater Professionals.
We invite a wide-ranging group of panelists and readers to conduct the anonymous review. The Choreography panelists were Vanessa Anspaugh, Randal Fippinger, Kristin Gregory, and Martha Potyrala. Ana Masacote served as a first-round reader.
The Fiction/Creative Nonfiction panelists were Mary-Kim Arnold, Mary O’Donoghue, Salvatore Scibona, and Shubha Sunder. Cherline Bazile, Robert Croll, Jennifer Alise Drew, Jane Dykema, Stephanie G’Schwind, Janalyn Guo, Dianca London Potts, Jill Maio, Sean P. McCarthy, Speer Morgan, GennaRose Nethercott, Lynne Nugent, Anie Onaiza, Daniela Petrova, Peng Shepherd, Ashley Strosnider, Shilpi Suneja, Brian Trapp, and Laura Willwerth served as first-round readers.
The Painting panelists were Erin Becker, Nathan Prebonick, and YoAhn Han.
