S.C. Arts Commission announces six Emerging Artist grantees
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COLUMBIA, S.C. – Six emerging individual #SCartists are benefitting from grants and career mentorship courtesy of the South Carolina Arts Commission’s Emerging Artist grant in FY2023, providing them valuable development as arts entrepreneurs.
The SCAC defines emerging artists as being at an early stage in their artistic career development with no basis in age. Six South Carolina artists were selected to each receive Emerging Artist grants ranging in amount from $1,500 to $1,800 from the SCAC in the current fiscal year (2023). They are:- Zeynep Gedikoglu of Clemson (multimedia sculpture)
- Jordon Mack of Orangeburg (visual art)
- Amanda Nicole of Liberty (music/composition)
- Jessica Swank of Easley (photography/sculpture)
- Shaquelle-Elijah Wiley of Columbia (music/performance)
- Rolf Anthony Young of Charleson (mixed media)
- “I'm so grateful ... not only for the funding but also for the community, accountability, and access that it will provide to this new group of southern artists,” Easley-based photographer and sculptor Jessica Swank
- Charleston mixed media artist Rolf Anthony Young anticipates growth from his participation. “Receiving the grant not only fills me with more confidence in my art practice but connects me to a valuable network of grant winners who inspire me.”
- Music artist Shaquelle-Elijah Wiley said it is overwhelming to be recognized this way. “I intend on representing the state with class and innovation,” he said.
About the South Carolina Arts Commission
The mission of the South Carolina Arts Commission is to promote equitable access to the arts and support the cultivation of creativity in South Carolina. We envision a South Carolina where the arts are valued and all people benefit from a variety of creative experiences. A state agency created by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1967, the SCAC works to increase public participation in the arts by providing grants, direct programs, staff assistance and partnerships in artist development, arts industry, arts learning, creative placemaking, and folklife and traditional arts. Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., the SCAC is funded by the state of South Carolina, by the federal government through the National Endowment for the Arts, and other sources. Visit SouthCarolinaArts.com or call 803.734.8696, and follow @scartscomm on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for #Arts4SC and #SCartists content.
The Artists’ Business Initiative is a grant and program from the SCAC that offers financial support for arts-based entrepreneurial initiatives and professional training for the artists who are grantees. Grants can support start-up costs, taking an existing business in a new direction, or executing a temporary initiative (like a single business purchase) that will improve sustainability. A one-time purchase may be awarded up to $3,500, and an ongoing business initiative may be awarded up to $5,000.
New grantee Talin Keyfer is an Anderson County artist who works in enamels and metals to create contemporary jewelry. Her works are available at various shows and through her website, 
This role serves a need that is central to the SCAC's mission to promote equitable access to the arts and support the cultivation of creativity in South Carolina, leading the department that serves #SCartists!
Dr. Eunjung Choi, a native of Seoul, South Korea, currently serves as associate professor of piano and coordinator of keyboard studies at Claflin University in Orangeburg, teaching applied piano, class piano, piano pedagogy and literature, and music appreciation. Dr. Choi has presented numerous performances, lectures, and workshops to international, national, and regional music audiences in the U.S. and South Korea. Her articles have been published in major national and international journals. Choi earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Dongduk Women’s University in Seoul, Master of Music from Ball State University, Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of South Carolina, and completed a management development program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education.
Michael Smallwood | Playwriting/Screenwriting | Charleston County
Michael Smallwood is an actor, writer, director, and teacher. He is originally from Baltimore, Maryland, but currently resides in Charleston. A College of Charleston alumnus, Smallwood has also studied theatre, acting, and writing at the Kennedy Center in Washington and Horizon Theatre Company in Atlanta. He is a core ensemble member of PURE Theatre in Charleston, having joined in 2011. His theatre credits include The Agitators, The Royale, Marie Antoinette, and The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, among many others. He is a two-time KCACTF award-winning playwright. His screenplays and short films have won awards from GenreBlast Film Festival, Crimson Screen Horror Film Festival, and many others. His film/television credits include the Emmy-winning CBS series “The Inspectors,” the Netflix original movie Naked, HBO's The Righteous Gemstones and Halloween Kills (2021). He is also arts editor for the Charleston City Paper and host of the podcast “Welcome to Greendale.”
Rebecca T. Godwin | Prose | Colleton County
Native South Carolinian Rebecca T. Godwin has published two novels, Keeper of the House (St. Martin’s, 1994) and Private Parts (Longstreet, 1992). Her stories and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Oxford American’s Best of the South issue, The Sun, Epoch, South Carolina Review, and elsewhere, and she has received MacDowell and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships. One of Godwin's first stories won the South Carolina Fiction Project and was included in the anthology, Inheritance (Hub City Press, 2001). For 13 years she taught literature and writing at Bennington College, during which time she conceived and was faculty editor for plain china, an online journal showcasing undergraduate writing from around the country. She has served as judge for the S.C. Fiction Project and as screening judge for the Drue Heinz Prize and The Atlantic’s Student Writing prizes. Godwin earned a bachelor’s from Coastal Carolina University and a master’s from Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English. She is currently at work on two novels and a story collection.
Marlanda Dekine | Spoken Word/Slam Poetry | Georgetown County
Marlanda Dekine (they/she) is a poet, a voice, and a presence. Their collection of poems, Thresh & Hold, won the 2021 New Southern Voices Poetry Prize at Hub City Press. Dekine is the creator of i am from a punch & a kiss, a multimedia book/mixtape project, and the founder of Speaking Down Barriers, a nonprofit working towards equity and justice. They are a Castle of Our Skins' Shirley Graham Du Bois Creative-in-Residence, a Palm Beach Poetry Festival Langston Hughes Fellow, Tin House Own Path Scholar, Emrys Keller Cushing Freeman Scholar, Watering Hole Fellow, and the recipient of many awards, including the SC Humanities Fresh Voice Award and Say What! Queen of the South. Their work has been published in Root Work Journal, Oxford American, POETRY Magazine, Emergence Magazine, Southern Humanities Review, and elsewhere. Currently, Dekine serves as Healing Justice Fellow with Gender Benders, a transgender advocacy group in the South, and as a guest poet with the composer/performer collective, counter)induction.
We talked with South Carolina artists about making art, making a life, and making a living.
The Detroit native (right) joined the SCAC as artist development director in 2019. Scott-Fitts was previously creative director and on the founding staff of the McColl Center for Art + Innovation in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she curated exhibitions, developed an artist-in-residence program, and established an international residency program for North Carolina artists in South Africa and Ireland.
She has served on numerous grant panels nationwide and taught in higher education. She is currently co-chair of the individual artist support committee for Grantmakers in the Arts and is the founder of South Carolina Artists in Action, which seeks to serve the unique needs of Black South Carolina artists. While adept at serving others, Scott-Fitts is also a practicing artist and has exhibited at museums, public spaces, and galleries throughout the Southeast with works in public and private collections in the U.S., Japan, and the United Kingdom. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in painting from Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.
Scott-Fitts will step into the role officially on July 1. She will continue to manage day-to-day artist development initiatives as she has been while adding oversight of select programs of the SCAC.
“I am thrilled to be a deputy director. I look forward to working with the programs teams as they create more opportunities for and support the state’s artists and arts organizations,” Scott-Fitts said.
“Ce has been a valuable member of the Arts Commission team since her first day here. She has put tremendous effort into developing meaningful relationships with South Carolina artists to connect them with agency resources. Among those are the fellowships program she modernized and rejuvenated and our emerging artists program, which offers not just a grant but valuable mentorship. We are excited that the additional agency programs and constituents will now benefit from her expertise,” SCAC Executive Director David Platts said.
