David Antonio Cruz (Painting Fellow ’22), CANYOUSTAYWITHMETONIGHT_CAUSEYOUAREHERE_YOUAREHERE_ANDWEAREHEREWITHYOU (2021), oil, acrylic, ink, and wax pencil on wood panel, 60×96 in.
Mass Cultural Council is honored to announce the FY22 Artist Fellowship awards in Drawing & Printmaking, Fiction/Creative Nonfiction, and Painting. The awards include 34 fellowships of $15,000, and 58 finalist awards of $5,000.
This is the second series of Artist Fellowships awards Mass Cultural Council has made in 2022. In January 2022, Mass Cultural Council announced 58 awards in Choreography, Poetry, and Traditional Arts.
Today’s announcement brings the number of monetary Artist Fellowships awards in 2022 to 150 – totaling $1.3 million dollars. This represents double last year’s total and the highest number of Fellowship grants per year in the program’s 47-year history.
The awards provide unrestricted support to individual artists to recognize and foster exceptional creative work. We received a total of 1,414 applications from artists throughout Massachusetts, including 326 in Drawing & Printmaking, 606 in Fiction/Creative Nonfiction, and 482 in Painting.
Evelyn Rydz (Drawing & Printmaking Fellow ’22, ’10), FOLDED WATERS (SURFACE TENSION) (2021), Oil Pigment Color Pencils on Duralar, 14×17 in.
Jerald Walker (Fiction/Creative Nonfiction Fellow ’22), cover art for HOW TO MAKE A SLAVE AND OTHER ESSAYS (Mad Creek Books).
Funding List
We invite a wide-ranging and diverse group of panelists and readers to conduct the anonymous review. The Drawing & Printmaking panelists were Roeya Amigh, Catherine Kernan, Simonette Quamina, and MiYoung Sohn.
The Fiction/Creative Nonfiction panelists were Jane De León Griffin, Edie Meidav, Metta Sáma, Ricardo A. Wilson III, and Jung Yun. Heather Abel, Gbolahan Adeola, Autumn Allen, Tatiana Johnson-Boris, Carla Bruce-Eddings, Gabriel Bump, Sarah M. Cedeño, Margaret Cezair-Thompson, Morris Collins, Robert Croll, Jarita Davis, Ellen Duffer, Jonathan Escoffery, Christopher Gonzalez, Kelle Groom, Cynthia Gunadi, Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón, Simon Han, Sara Hendren, Toni Jensen, Marjan Kamali, Chandreyee Lahiri, Ying-Ju Lai, E.K. Ota, Brenda Sparks Prescott, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Whitney Scharer, Rone Shavers, Emily Shelton, Katie Sticca, Shilpi Suneja, Laura Szaro Kopinski, Morgan Talty, Lysley Tenorio, Christine Vines, Val Wang, Ann Ward, and Laura Willwerth served as first-round readers.
The Painting panelists were David Brewster, Leslie Condon, Erica Licea-Kane, Ilana Manolson, and James Stanley.
All awardees will be featured on our online Gallery and monthly Fellows Notes updates.
The Artist Fellowships are part of Mass Cultural Council’s sustained effort to support individual artists with grants and services. Sign up for the monthly Artist News e-newsletter to receive all updates, details, and deadlines for Mass Cultural Council’s funding and support for artists.
Imo Imeh (Painting Fellow ’22), ANGEL LANDING (2020), Oil paint, India ink, and charcoal on unstretched canvas, 100×84 in.
