Visual artists invited to apply for RACC’s 2011 fellowship award

The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) is now seeking applications from visual artists for RACC’s annual fellowship, which will honor one extraordinary artist with a $20,000 award this spring. Applications are now available online at www.racc.org/grants.

The RACC Artist Fellowship award was established in 1999 to honor and support uniquely talented local artists who have contributed to the community in very meaningful ways. The accompanying cash award allows the recipient to pursue a particular project, or enhance his or her artistic process.

A panel of community representatives with expertise in the visual arts field will select the fellowship winner. An artist’s involvement in the community will play a significant role in evaluating each application. In addition, applicants must meet several strict criteria in order to be eligible for this highly competitive award:

• The applicant must be a professional artist, as recognized by his/her peers, with a minimum of 10 years experience in visual art.
• The applicant must have been an Oregon resident for a minimum of 5 years and a current resident of Clackamas, Multnomah, or Washington Counties.
• The applicant must demonstrate sustained high artistic quality of artmaking.
• The fellowship winner will need to provide a Social Security number upon notification of receiving the award.

RACC rotates the discipline being honored every year, and past recipients have crafted ideas and developed works that reflected the shape of our region and the voice of their time. They include: Mary Oslund and Obo Addy (Performing Arts, 1999); Christine Bourdette and Terry Toedtemeier (Visual Arts, 2000); Jim Blashfield (Media Arts, 2001); Michele Glazer (Literary Arts, 2001); Tomas Svoboda and Keith Scales (Performing Arts, 2002); Judy Cooke and Michael Brophy (Visual Arts, 2003); Chel White (Media Arts, 2004); Craig Lesley (Literary Arts, 2004); Thara Memory (Performing Arts, 2005); Henk Pander (Visual Arts, 2006); Joanna Priestly (Media Arts, 2007); Kim Stafford (Literary Arts, 2008); and Robin Lane (Performing Arts, 2010).

Guidelines can be downloaded from the RACC website, and all applications must be submitted online at www.racc.org/grants. To be eligible to apply, applicants must submit an “Intent to Apply” form electronically no later than 5:00pm, Wednesday, April 6, 2011. The deadline for electronic submission of the full application is April 13, 2011 by 5:00pm. Applicants are then required to physically submit hard-copies of the application along with supplementary materials by April 20, 2011.