2020 S.C. Arts Commission fellowships announced
Four honored for achievement in visual art, craft, and music
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina artists in Darlington, Pickens, and Richland counties representing four arts disciplines received individual artist fellowships for fiscal year 2020 after approval by the S.C. Arts Commission board of directors.
Individual artists residing in South Carolina full-time whose work covers visual arts, craft, music composition and music performance were invited to apply for fiscal year 2020 awards. Applications were up 25% over last year. Out-of-state panelists from each discipline review the applications and, based solely on their blind review of anonymous work samples, recommend recipients of each $5,000 fellowship. At its June meeting, the S.C. Arts Commission board of directors approved the following recommendations:
- Adrian Rhodes of Darlington County for visual art,
- Valerie Zimany of Pickens County for craft,
- Fang Man of Richland County for music composition, and
- Craig Butterfield of Richland County for music performance.
Fellowships recognize and reward the artistic achievements of exceptional South Carolina individual artists. Recognition from fellowship awards lends artistic prestige and often opens doors to other resources and employment opportunities.
“These awards can be transformative; they lift artists’ spirits and self-perception while allowing them to focus on their art. Past fellows talk about how it can be a life-changing event,” S.C. Arts Commission Executive Director
Ken May said. “South Carolina’s artists are at the core of our creative economy and serve as indispensable contributors to quality of life in our communities. Our agency is proud to deliver these tokens of gratitude on behalf of those most affected by the work being honored: the people of South Carolina.”
The diverse panelists (above) who judged each discipline’s nominees work in those disciplines. Reviewing the visual art and craft applicants were
Wendy Earle, curator of contemporary art at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina;
Bruce Pepich, executive director and curator of collections of the Racine Art Museum and Wustum Museum of Fine Arts in Racine, Michigan; and
Marilyn Zapf, the assistant director and curator at the Center for Craft, a national arts nonprofit headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina.
Brent Milam, instructor of music theory and composition at Georgia State University; and
Dr. Robert Tanner, associate professor of music at Morehouse College, reviewed the music composition applicants.
Verena Lucía Anders, a conductor, pianist, vocalist, composer, music educator, and winner of multiple Grammy Awards; and
Tami Lee Hughes, a concert violinist, recording artist, and music educator reviewed applicants in music performance.
Four fellowships per year are awarded to artists working in rotating disciplines. One artist from each of these fields: prose, poetry, dance choreography and dance performance, will be honored in fiscal year 2021. To be eligible, artists must be at least 18 years old and a legal U.S. resident with permanent residence in the state for two years prior to the application date and throughout the fellowship period. Applications will be accepted later this summer following announcement by the S.C. Arts Commission. For more on discipline rotation, eligibility requirements, and the application process, please visit
https://www.southcarolinaarts.com/grant/fel/
About the FY20 S.C. Arts Commission Fellows
VISUAL ART | ADRIAN RHODES | Darlington County
Adrian Rhodes, a Hartsville, South Carolina native, received her Master of Fine Arts in painting and printmaking from Winthrop University in 2011. Printmaking forms the core of her mixed media practice, resulting in installation, paintings, editioned prints, collage, and sculptural paper pieces. Her work has shown throughout the Carolinas, including select solo exhibitions at the UNC Charlotte, City Art in Columbia, the Dalton Gallery at the Center for the Arts in Rock Hill, and the Rebecca Randall Bryan gallery at Coastal Carolina University. Her work has frequently received awards in juried competitions, including taking the top prize at VAE Raleigh’s
Contemporary South 2017 and Best of Show at the
York County Juried Exhibition in 2013. Her work was recently featured in the
Paper Worlds exhibition at the Spartanburg Art Museum. She currently teaches printmaking at the University of South Carolina. Her work can be seen at
www.adrianrhodes.com, and you can follow her studio practice on Instagram: @adrian_rhodes.
CRAFT | VALERIE ZIMANY | Pickens County
Extensive time in Japan fostered Valerie Zimany’s examinations of complex relationships, to include East and West. She spent several years there after earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia—first as a Fulbright Fellow, then completing a Master of Fine Arts at Kanazawa College of Art as a Japanese Government Scholar, and three more years in residency at the Utatsuyama Craft Workshop in Kanazawa. Her work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions and competitions in Japan; Korea; Billings, Montana; Philadelphia and Pittsburgh; Columbia; and more and it appears in multiple public and private collections. She was named an American Craft Council Searchlight Artist for 2007, a Ceramics Monthly Emerging Artist for 2008, and was a finalist for the Niche Award (2011) and the Society for Contemporary Craft’s Founder’s Prize 2013). She is department chair and associate professor of art (ceramics) at Clemson University.
MUSIC: COMPOSITION | FANG MAN | Richland County
Hailed as “inventive and breathtaking” by the New York Times, Fang Man’s original concert music has been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra New Music Group under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen, American Composers Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, National Orchestre de Lorraine (France), Minnesota Orchestra, Music from China, and others. She is the recipient of Guggenheim and other fellowships and grants and the National Endowment for the Arts, Music from China, and Toru Takemitsu (Japan) awards. She has received commissions from around the world and has multiple recordings. Fang served as a resident composer in Italy, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. and has degrees from Cornell (MFA, DMA) and Beijing Central Conservatory of Music. She is currently an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina.
MUSIC: PERFORMANCE | CRAIG BUTTERFIELD | Richland County
Craig Butterfield is professor of double bass and jazz studies at the University of South Carolina, where he directs one of the largest double bass programs in the Southeast. He has composed, performed, and recorded in genres as diverse as classical, jazz, American folk, and World music. Notable collaborations include touring and recording with jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, three albums of original music with multi-instrumentalist Jesse Jones as the Jones/Butterfield duo, three albums with classical guitarist Matthew Slotkin as Dez Cordas, a collaboration with classical pianist Charles Fugo, and a current recording project of original folk-inspired music with Boomtown Trio. Butterfield’s YouTube channel featuring original performances in multiple genres has more than a quarter of a million views.
About the South Carolina Arts Commission
With a commitment to excellence across the spectrum of our state’s cultures and forms of expression, the South Carolina Arts Commission pursues its public charge to develop a thriving arts environment, which is essential to quality of life, education, and economic vitality for all South Carolinians.
Created by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1967, the Arts Commission works to increase public participation in the arts by providing grants, direct programs, staff assistance and partnerships in three key areas:
- arts education,
- community arts development,
- and artist development.
Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., the Arts Commission is funded by the state of South Carolina, by the federal government through the National Endowment for the Arts and other sources. For more information, visit
SouthCarolinaArts.com or call 803.734.8696.
During its 32nd graduation ceremony on May 22, SCGSSM announced that it will rename its visual arts studio the Patz Fowle Visual Arts Studio. Fowle (right) is a visual arts coordinator, art instructor, and professional artist and the founder of SCGSSM’s visual arts program.
Fowle began her service to GSSM in 1999 when she started teaching Art in the Interim. In 2013, she joined the Student Development Division as the Governor’s School’s Visual Arts Coordinator. She converted an empty former foreign languages lab to an “Open Art Studio,” accessible to all students and developed to support their artistic prowess and encourage their artistic promise. Because of Fowle’s commitment to wellness and student expression, the space she created continues to contribute to the overall well-being of the school community. She partners regularly with colleagues across disciplines to provide interdisciplinary opportunities. Through her passion and leadership, GSSM students are recognized throughout the state not only for their academic and athletic achievements, but also their art accolades.
During the 2018/2019 academic year, GSSM made the wise decision to make visual arts and music courses a part of the regular academic curriculum. Fowle has been teaching four art courses through the humanities department since 2019, while maintaining the non-academic art offerings, setting up exhibits featuring student artwork, and managing the studio. Her efforts have shown the public that the GSSM student is not one dimensional, but multi-talented and multi-faceted. This has broadened the public’s perspective of the school for prospective students and their families. Our art program’s accomplishments can also be celebrated in the promotion of the school to all constituencies.
“Announcing the naming of the Patz Fowle Visual Arts Studio is a great honor,” said Interim President Danny Dorsel. “Patz is dedicated to providing opportunities for students to explore and express their creative side. Her students make our hallways come alive with their artwork. We are very grateful that Patz is part of the GSSM community and the transformational journey our students experience.”
Works in the GSSM Student Art Exhibition were created through multiple modes of learning including traditional visual arts courses and innovative, student-choice opportunities in GSSM’s on-campus art studio. Various media represented in the student exhibit include graphite, charcoal, Conté, pen & ink, colored pencils, acrylic on canvas, watercolor, carved wood, altered books, printmaking, stained indigenous terracotta, glazed stoneware and sculptures created in non-traditional media.
Students engaged with professional artist Patz Fowle to deepen their understanding of visual art while developing skills, techniques, and processes to create meaningful 2-D and 3-D
works. In addition to the courses Fowle teaches, she also offers residential students innovative, student-choice opportunities. Such opportunities include access GSSM’s art studio to work independently, invitations to attend various creative workshops, and the opportunity for students to lead their own workshops. Students are also invited to participate in public art exhibitions and collaborate on significant endeavors like the Mother Earth Project; Frederic Douglass portrait, or other works created with traditional and non-traditional media.
“Art is a strong unifying element within a community,” says Fowle, visual arts coordinator at GSSM. “Creative collaboration between the Hartsville Museum and the South Carolina Governor’s School for Science & Mathematics is a beneficial bridge connecting Hartsville’s history to Hartsville’s future, through art, education, and culture.”
Exhibiting student artists include:
As the day nears for the 2019 South Carolina Arts Awards, The Hub is taking 15 days to focus on this year's recipients: nine receiving the 
The S.C. African American Heritage Commission (SCAAHC) identifies and promotes the preservation of historic sites, structures, buildings, and culture of the African American experience in South Carolina, and assists and enhances the efforts of the S.C. Department of Archives and History. A joint resolution of the General Assembly in 1993 established the South Carolina African American Heritage Council, re-established as a commission in 2001. The 15-member commission includes representatives from all regions of the state.
The commission’s goals are to: increase the social, political, and economic value of African American heritage; encourage and demonstrate respect for all heritage; encourage the documentation of African American heritage; institutionalize African American heritage as an ongoing goal of preservation; and explore every area of South Carolina for African American contributions.
The SCAAHC is known across the state for publishing A Teacher’s Guide to African American Historic Places in South Carolina. The guide was originally published in 2008, revised in 2012, then updated in 2015. But in 2016, they published the first arts-integrated supplement. The work was the product of a team of dedicated teachers and college students from across South Carolina representing grades K-12.
That supplement was updated in 2018 to incorporate 2017 South Carolina College-and Career-Ready Standards for Visual and Performing Arts Proficiency. The current version added 18 lesson plans to the 22-plan 2016 supplement, giving teachers 30 potential lessons that merge arts learning with learning about African American history and achievements.
Other notable arts-related accomplishments include publishing The Business of Rural Heritage, Culture and Art: An Introductory Resource Guide for Entrepreneurs; presenting FREED, African American female Civil War reenactors in 2018; featuring award-winning speaker, storyteller and artist Natalie Daise in her production “Becoming Harriet Tubman” in 2012; and presenting Opera Noire in Columbia and Hartsville in 2010.
In 2017, the SCAAHC received acclaim for launching “Green Book of South Carolina,” an online travel guide to S.C. African American historic and cultural sites.
For more, 
These funds, made possible through partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, support the presentation of touring performing and literary artists in public performances and readings along with educational activities throughout Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Good morning! "Tuning Up" is a new, morning series of posts where The Hub delivers quick-hit arts stories of interest to readers. Sometimes there will be one story, sometimes there will be several. Get in tune now, and have a masterpiece of a day. And now, in no particular order...
