Art 21 seeking graduate student writers
Open Enrollment, the newest weekly column on the Art21 Blog, chronicles the experience of graduate school via the perspective of current students. As MA and MFA degrees become ever more the norm for the professional training of artists, educators, and administrators alike, Open Enrollment functions as a time-sensitive journal, offering readers a birds-eye-view of the challenges, rewards, puzzles, and ontological questioning that a graduate education engenders.
Each semester, a selective and diverse group of students (6 max) from accredited graduate programs, as well as students studying at non-traditional institutions (temporary schools, artist’s educational projects, intensive residency programs, etc.), will take up residence on the Art21 Blog. The roster of contributors will grow over time, providing a cross-section of international venues and pedagogical approaches. While chronicling one’s own practice is encouraged in the context of larger concerns, this column is not a forum or vehicle for narrowly promoting one’s own work. It is intended to portray, through both personal examples and larger inquiries about the pursuit of higher education, the diversity of studio and critical academic experiences in art school today.
CALLING ALL ART STUDENTS! Chicago’s 4Art Inc Gallery is currently seeking submissions for its stimulating new series, Art Diaries. Read on.
What is Art Diaries? Have you ever kept a secret from everyone except yourself? Have you ever kept a diary, confiding your secrets to paper? Imagine if your diaries were published, their pages torn from the binding, tacked to the wall like an open wound, for all the world to see. Your darkest secrets, your deepest fears… your greatest joys, your most visionary dreams, your most extraordinary revelations. And yet, for many visual artists, the canvas acts as the diary, the personal vessel that, when marked, suddenly releases something from within that could not otherwise be expressed out loud or written in a book. Art Diaries is a provocative new series that asks artists to look within themselves and visually “write” what is usually unspoken, to communicate those suppressed thoughts without actually speaking.
Art Diaries explores what happens when something that is usually kept private is shared, becoming a process of universal visual communication from artist to artist and from artist to viewer. Why do we keep diaries? If diary writing is a private act, how do diary writers relate to one another once their thoughts are exposed? What becomes of the relationship between the private and the public once this exposure takes place? Art Diaries is communication at its rawest and most profound; what we write in diaries often include words that we cannot, would not, or should not say out loud. It is in this territory that the artist reigns.
How can I participate? You may visit the website for the submission application. In Art Diaries, the only limitation is size: all work must be 4” x 4” in height and width (but there are no parameters for coming outward sculpturally). Beyond these bounds, the artist is free in all aspects of creation, including the medium: from video installation to digital art, from sculpture to collage, from oil to watercolor, and everything in between, the artist is in total control of the creative process.
Why art students? 4Art prides itself in being able to encourage, nurture, and motivate artists of all experience levels. Filled with entrepreneurial spirit, the gallery has cultivated the perfect environment that will help artists proceed into the art world with confidence. There is nothing more exciting than helping jump-start an art student’s journey into the art world. 4Art helps artists grow, offers a tight-knit and supportive community among peers, allow collectors to see artists evolve, and, most importantly, provide a strong foundation that artists will forever carry with them as they pursue their careers.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: 2010-2011 Caxton Club Scholarship Awards
The Caxton Club will award two scholarships for expenses of up to $2,500 (each) for book-related projects to be completed during academic year 2010-2011
I. Applicants should have demonstrable interest in the history of the book,
book arts, literary studies, or library studies and must be enrolled in a
Chicago area graduate program in one of the following areas:
Literary studies with specific relation to print culture
History of the book
Book arts
Library workers and other professionals seeking additional training in book
history or book arts fields are encouraged to apply.
II. Applicants must supply a brief statement of interest (1 page) outlining
the title and description of the project or work for which support is sought
and must include:
Relevance of the project to the Caxton Club’s mission*
Material or samples of supporting work (these items will be available for
pickup on May 20, 2010)
Reason scholarship is needed Proposed budget Contact information for
applicant including phone, address, and e-mail
Two letters of recommendation must be submitted with completed application
from faculty members or direct supervisory staff. These letters should include:
Description of talent of nominee
Attestation to character of nominee
Length of time known by recommender
Any significant details that enhance personal details
III. Criteria for judging will include: Quality of application
Appropriateness of the proposed project to Caxton Club Recognition of
limited funding available Projects in book arts (collecting, preserving,
publishing, binding, etc)
IV. Deadline for application materials is Monday, May 3, 2010. Notification
of award letters will be sent on May 20, 2010, following confirmation of
winners by the Caxton Club Council.
V. Award presentations will be made September 15, 2010 at the first Caxton
meeting for the 2010-11 year. Club members will meet the winning student(s)
and winners will have a chance to personalize the investment of the Club.
VI. Winners may be asked to present a report of their experiences and
activities at a program near the end of 2011. Entrants acknowledge, by the
act of submitting their application, the right of the Caxton Club to
reproduce photographs of physical objects or quotations from written
material submitted in support of the application.
* The Caxton Club’s purpose is the literary study and promotion of the arts
pertaining to the production of books. Within the scope of such object may
come arranging for lectures and exhibitions, and the occasional publishing
of books, offered and designed to illustrate and support the object of the Club.
Send applications to:
The Caxton Club
The Newberry Library
60 W. Walton
Chicago, IL 60610-7324
ATTN: Scholarship Committee
For more information about the Caxton Club go to http://www.caxtonclub.org/
