Individual Artist Fellowships

Delaware’s Individual Artist Fellowships recognize artists for their outstanding quality of work and provide monetary awards. Individual Artist Fellows are publicly acknowledged and benefit from the additional exposure to their work.

Established Professionals

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Larry S. Anderson
Visual Arts: Painting
“I still use my engineer’s scales. I still use my triangles and T-squares. It’s mathematical. Art is math.”

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Christopher Childers
Literature: Poetry
“… [a poem’s form] is both an insight into its subject and the architecture that makes that insight possible.”

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Viet Dinh
Literature: Fiction
“I haven’t been there, I haven’t lived that life. What do I imagine it would be like?”

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Maribeth Fischer
Literature: Fiction
“I have had people who have said to me [in free-write sessions], ‘I hate your character. I don’t even want to read that book.'”

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Michael Kalmbach
Visual Arts: Painting
“[Art] ultimately needs to be radically free of any constraints”

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Ashley John Pigford
Visual Arts: Sculpture
“Things like clock radios, computer hard drives, doorbells… and remaking that into a different type of experience”

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Heather J. M. Siple
Visual Arts: Photography
“It’s just a matter of poking around the hardware store and finding something that’ll bend the light to 180 degrees.”

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Nina Spencer
Folk Art: Visual Arts
“I will dream or see the picture before I paint it, I’m just the instrument. I’m just a vessel.”

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Jerry Crabmeat Thompson
Folk Art: Music
“I could play for weeks and not repeat myself, I find it a lot of fun to record like this… I don’t delete much.”

Emerging Professionals

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Hunter Clarke
Visual Arts: Painting
“Without this cycle of becoming part of another, there would be nothing.”

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Cybèle Clark-Mendes
Visual Arts: Photography
“As a woman of mixed heritage… the topic of skin color and appearance is at the forefront of my work.”

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Tery Aine Griffin
Literature: Fiction
“But it’s kind of like breathing—if I don’t write, I’m not happy. So I just write, really, because I always have.”

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Allison Haug
Visual Arts: Crafts
“Since I am a scientist, I’m used to working within certain conditions.”

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Felise Luchansky
Visual Arts: Works on Paper
“It’s always been there, this idea to cut and paste and to rearrange.”

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Michael Sterling Smith
Music: Composition
“My music, I guess it doesn’t use too much traditional harmony… It’s more counterpoint than harmonically based.”

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L.J. Sysko
Literature: Poetry
“I read poetry that seemed to grant itself, and by extension, all of us, permission to be real, physical, and contemporary beings”

About the Fellowship

The Division offers fellowships in the artistic disciplines of choreography, folk art, jazz, literature, media arts, music, and visual arts. Artists’ work samples are reviewed by nationally recognized out-of-state arts professionals, considering both demonstrated creativity and skill in the art form.

The awards—$3,000 for Emerging Artists, $6,000 for Established Professionals, and $10,000 for Masters—allow artists to pursue advanced training, purchase equipment and materials, or fulfill
other needs that will help advance their careers.

The highest honor—the Masters Fellow—is reserved for those who meet rigorous criteria. Only one Masters Fellow can be awarded each year. Disciplines rotate every three years.

During the fellowship year, recipients are required to showcase their work in a public exhibit or performance in Delaware

 

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