35 Virginia artists, students awarded arts fellowships by museum

By: | Times-Dispatch
Published: January 22, 2010

Thirty-five Virginia art students and artists have been awarded a total of $202,000 in 2010 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowships.

In the 70 years in which VMFA has presented fellowships, the museum has awarded $4.2 million to 1,104 professional and student artists who are permanent residents of Virginia.

"The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is committed to supporting the commonwealth's artists and art students. We are grateful to the late John Lee Pratt of Fredericksburg for establishing a VMFA endowment that makes this support possible and to others who have added funds to the endowment over the years," said Alex Nyerges, VMFA's director, in a news release.

Professional awards: Fourteen professional artists won 2010 awards of $8,000 each. They are (in alphabetical order by hometown) Kevin Everson (film-video) and Janet Grahame (mixed media) of Charlottesville; Bill Fisher (painting) of Chester; Greg Stewart (sculpture) of Harrisonburg; SunTek Chung (photography), Chris Mahonski (sculpture), Jeff Majer (painting), Michael Jones McKean (sculpture), Natalya Pinchuk (crafts), Stephen Vitiello (mixed media), and Kendra Wadsworth (drawing) of Richmond; Ann Glover (painting) and Brett LaGue (drawing) of Roanoke; and Aaron Sanders (photography) of Springfield.

The juror for the professional fellowship awards was Laura Hoptman, the Kraus Family Senior Curator at the New Museum in New York City.

Student awards: Six graduate students won 2010 awards worth $6,000 each. They are Jesi Pace-Berkeley (painting) of Blacksburg; Christopher Oliver (art history) of Charlottesville; Sarah Kreiger (printmaking) of Lynchburg; and Leilani Gonzales (crafts), Justin Kroman (painting), and Jon-Phillip Sheridan (photography) of Richmond.

Twelve undergraduate students won 2010 awards worth $4,000 apiece. They are Erin Sonoda (photography) of Alexandria; Luke Harman (mixed media) of Blacksburg; Blair Condon (photography) of Fairfax; Jessica Dodd (sculpture) of Herndon; Samantha Cooper (crafts) and David Thompson (photography) of Mechanicsville; Phillip Nesmith (photography), Rachel Rainer (photography) and Allison Smith (drawing) of Richmond; Irena Stanisic (mixed media) of Roanoke; Amber Bender (photography) of Stafford; and Julianne Jamora (photography) of Virginia Beach.

In addition, three undergraduates were awarded 2010 Fellowships worth $2,000 each for their final semester. They are Michael Muelhaupt (sculpture) and Dena Sussman (photography) of Richmond and Chris Underwood (film-video) of Dumfries.

The jurors for the graduate and undergraduate awards were David Brown, deputy director of art for the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Va.; Ragan Cole-Cunningham, director of exhibitions and education at the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia in Virginia Beach; Andrea Douglas, curator of collections and exhibitions at the University of Virginia Art Museum in Charlottesville; and Dr. Theresa Leininger-Miller, associate professor of art history at the School of Art at the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Money for the fellowships comes from a privately endowed fund administered by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. It was initiated in 1940 by John Lee Pratt of Fredericksburg (the husband of Lillian Thomas Pratt, donor of the museum's Peter Carl Fabergé collection). In the years since then, the fund has been supplemented by gifts from the Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation and the J. Warwick McClintic Jr. Scholarship Fund, with additional support from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Foundation.