Artist Trust supported 21 artists with the 2004 Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowships. Each recipient received an unrestricted cash award of $6,000. The award recognizes an artist’s creative excellence and accomplishment, professional achievement and continuing dedication to their artistic discipline. In 2004, the Fellowship Program received a total of 333 applications from artists working in Dance, Design, Theater, and Visual Arts.

The information included in each grant recipient profile below is based on each recipient’s application materials submitted at the time of application. 

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DANCE

Amy O’Neal* (Seattle, King County) is a performer, choreographer and teacher who received her BFA in Dance from Cornish College of the Arts and also studied at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance (NYC). Her recent new works, deface and reflect/deflect, were made with frequent collaborator Zeke Keeble and incorporated O’Neal’s work as a filmmaker and singer as well. Her dance/music collaborative locust has created more than a dozen new works since its founding in 2000. O’Neal’s upcoming project, convenience, will premiere at On the Boards this January. She also has as an upcoming 2005 commission with Spectrum Dance Theater and has previously received an Artist Trust GAP award (2003) and funding from the City of Seattle’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs and the Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation.

*This Fellowship award is funded through a generous gift from Sally Behnke.

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Haruko Nishimura+ (Seattle, King County) has been an active director, organizer, choreographer, and performer for the past ten years. Two of her major works, Nymph and Scream!Liondogs, were produced and commissioned by On the Boards in Seattle. She is co-founder of the Degenerate Art Ensemble for which her adventurous work combines physical theater, butoh dance and live experimental music. She has performed around the globe with DAE as well as the other cooperatives from San Francisco, Berlin and Holland. She has previously received an Artist Trust GAP award and will be touring the Czech Republic and Germany this spring with DAE.

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DESIGN

Edie Whitsett+ (Seattle, King County) is a set designer, painter, and sculptor whose recent installation, Peephole Theater, at the downtown Seattle Public Library, was commissioned by the City of Seattle’s Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs. Her multi-faceted work includes her role as chief scenic artist at Pacific Northwest Ballet, as well as design work for Seattle Opera and Intiman Theater. Whitsett received widespread acclaim for her set design of Charlotte's Web at the Seattle Children's Theatre in 2002. Recent exhibition/performance projects also include Julius Caesar commissioned by Green Hill Youth Detention Center, and Flights of Fantasy with the King County Youth Detention Facility (produced in conjunction with The Children’s Museum).

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THEATRE

Elise Forier+ (Tacoma, Pierce County) has had more than 15 plays produced across the country, including new works in New York and Los Angeles. She has twice been invited to attend the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center where she developed the award winning La Llorona and Other Tales of the American Southwest and The Last Stand of the Comanche Rider. She has received playwriting awards from the Hugo House, the Whidbey Center for the Arts and the Tacoma Arts Commission. Forier was recognized for her ambitious and challenging manuscript The Last Stand of the Comanche Rider, which blends Native American storytelling with a standard realist stage format. Rider moves between a ghostly world and the hard scrabble reality of reservation life and was developed with the National Playwrights Conference and Northland Pioneer College in Northern Arizona.

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Andrew Kim (Vashon, King County) is a master puppeteer who performs, acts and directs his own work primarily in Korea, Minneapolis and Seattle. He is also currently touring England with his solo performances. Kim has also served as Artistic Director for the Fremont Summer Solstice Pageant, a large-scale community produced event in Seattle for the past three years. He has received funding for his original works from 4Culture as well as the National Endowment for the Arts. He is currently working on a new full-length work to open in July 2005 at the National Conference of the Puppeteers of America, The Vertigo of Sheep. 

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Laurel Ann White+ (Seattle, King County) has 30 years of professional experience as an actor, director, playwright, educator and coach. Since receiving her MFA in Theatre from the University of Washington in 1982, White has worked with organizations such as Jack Straw Productions, University of Washington/Harborview Medical Center, Young Playwrights Festival, Seattle Center Academy and Seattle Children's Theatre. She has been an Artist-in Residence for the Washington State Arts Commission for eight years and has directed, acted in and produced plays around the country. Her most recent efforts have focused on playwriting, including her first full-length dramatic script River Bed that responds to the media coverage of the Green River murders through adapting the voices of the victims into a compelling story that portrays them as contemporary versions of the Three Graces.

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VISUAL ARTS**

Arthur Aubry (Seattle, King County) photographs details from industrial landscapes around the Northwest with great formal control and grace. He has exhibited locally at such venues as Esther Claypool Gallery, Linda Cannon galley, and more recently at University of Puget Sound and Arizona State University. His work is included in the permanent collections of Seattle Art Museum, Henry Art Gallery, and the Microsoft Art Collection among others. Aubry runs his own commercial studio business in addition to his work as a fine artist. He has begun a relationship with the Gitterman Gallery in New York and has an upcoming show there in late 2006.

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Sami Ben Larbi (Seattle, King County) received his BFA in Ceramics from the University of Washington in 2001. His inquiry-based installation work was most recently featured at Bumbershoot’s new media art exhibition this past summer. Recent work has been shown at such venues as Howard House Gallery and Consolidated Works among others. Ben Larbi’s inflatable wear was featured in Thread’s Fashion Is Art exhibition and catalogue, both in 2003. His upbringing in France and Tunisia continues to influence his awareness of diversity as it relates to social and personal identity, themes explored in much of his artwork. Ben Larbi will have a new installation at Consolidated Works in early 2005 as part of the exhibit Ergonomicon. www.s-b-l.org.

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Gretchen Bennett (Seattle, King County) received her MFA from Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts. She has recently exhibited her work at the Bronx Museum, PS122 Gallery, Smack Mellon Studios in NYC and at SOIL Art Gallery in Seattle (Topography of Home). She was recently awarded residencies at Centrum and the Yaddo Foundation and previously received a Fulbright Award to study in Prague as well as a Pratt Fine Arts Center residency among other awards. Assembled with stickers collected from city kiosks and buildings, many of Bennett’s wall drawings and installations simulate branch networks and other natural formations. Bennett will be showing new work at Howard House among other venues in 2005.

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Dawn Cerny (Seattle, King County) received her BFA from Cornish College of the Arts. She has recently shown her works on paper and installation work at Crawl Space, The Vera Project, SOIL Art Gallery, and Fisher Gallery among other venues. Cerny was Artist-in-Residence at Cornish College of the Arts in 2001. She is the co-founder of SS Marie Antoinette Press, an artist book press and letterpress studio begun in 2004. She’s currently working on a drawing series for an upcoming issue of Rivet magazine and a drawing installation for an upcoming group show at the Kirkland Art Center in March 2005. Additionally, Cerny devotes much of her time to a growing collection of terrariums and post-Carter administration furniture while also maintaining her own website www.dawncerny.com that features her recent works on paper, upcoming lectures, and artist books.

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Claire Cowie (Seattle, King County) received her BFA in Drawing and Printmaking from Washington University in St. Louis in 1997, and her MFA in Printmaking from the University of Washington in 1999. She is locally represented by James Harris Gallery. Recent work includes an exhibition of sculpture at Cherry de los Reyes Gallery, a residency and exhibition at Henry Art Gallery, and a solo show of collage work at James Harris Gallery (as reviewed in Art Forum). Cowie was also awarded the 2004 Neddy Artist Fellowship from the Behnke Foundation and her work will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at Tacoma Art Museum (January 29 – June 5, 2004) that highlights work from Neddy Fellowship recipients over the past ten years.

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Chris Engman (Seattle, King County) received his BFA in photography from the University of Washington in 2003. His most recent photographs involve large outdoor installations constructed in found environments and have been exhibited at the University of Washington’s CMA gallery and Jacob Lawrence Gallery as well as the Photographic Center Northwest. Engman’s work was recently purchased by 4Culture as part of their portable works call. He received a 2004 Artist Trust GAP award and recently had work in an upcoming new members show at SOIL Art Gallery in Seattle. Engman is also a resident set designer with the multi-disciplinary performance group Degenerate Art Ensemble.

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Mandy Greer (Seattle, King County) is a fabric and mixed media installation artist with an MFA in Ceramics from the University of Washington. Her work has recently been exhibited at Consolidated Works, Priceless Works Gallery, and the 4Culture Gallery of King County among other venues. She has also exhibited her work at Tacoma Art Museum, Bellevue Art Museum, and the Henry Art Gallery. Greer received a Special Projects grant from 4Culture of King County in 2003 and was recently awarded a public art commission to create a permanent installation for the Children’s Section of the new downtown Seattle Public Library to be installed in three parts over 2005 and 2006. Her work is also featured in a new DVD produced by www.Muchacreative.com.

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Kevin Haas+ (Pullman, Spokane County) received his BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and his MFA from Indiana University. His most recent body of work—using photogravure and photolithography techniques—has focused on urban landscapes and the instability of experience and memory as contrasted to our built environments. Haas has recently exhibited at Kansas State University, Columbia College (Chicago) and Center of Contemporary Art (St. Louis) among other venues. He has upcoming solo exhibits at SNAP Gallery (Edmonton, AB) and Lorinda Knight Gallery (Spokane) and is currently on faculty at Washington State University where he teaches printmaking and digital media. Haas also maintains a website, www.accumulated.org, featuring recent work.

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Victoria Haven+ (Seattle, King County) received her BFA in Painting at the University of Washington and her MFA at Goldsmiths College/University of London. Her abstracted drawings and installations, many of which hover between two and three dimensions, center on an interest in the tension between natural landscapes and built space. Haven recently received the 2004 Betty Bowen Award, a Stranger Genius award, and has previously received two Pollock-Krasner Fellowships among other awards and residencies. Her most recent solo exhibit, Wonderland, just closed at Howard House in Seattle and was reviewed in Art Forum.

*This Fellowship award is funded through a generous gift from Catherine & David Skinner.

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Patrick Holderfield (Seattle, King County) received his BFA in Painting from State University College at Buffalo. He is represented locally by James Harris Gallery. A recent solo show of works on paper and sculpture at James Harris marked his second solo exhibit there in the past four years. His work has also been exhibited at Elizabeth Leach Gallery (Portland), Noodleworks, and CoCA among other venues. Holderfield’s work has been reviewed in Art in America and Sculpture among other publications. His work is included in many private and public collections including the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, Tacoma Art Museum and the Altoids collection.

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Margie Livingston's (Seattle, King County) abstract paintings investigate perspective and geometry through nuance and direct observation of nature. Livingston calls her work "a search for equivalencies and resonance." She recently had a solo exhibition at Greg Kucera Gallery, and is an active member of SOIL Art Gallery, an artist cooperative. Livingston has previously received a Fulbright Scholarship to travel and work in Germany and a residency to attend the Vermont Studio Center. She will have another solo exhibition at Greg Kucera Gallery in April 2005. www.margie.net.

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Allan Packer+ (Seattle, King County) received his MFA from the University of Tennessee. His figurative, ingeniously designed sculpture has been exhibited widely, including two recent solo shows at Davidson Gallery in Seattle. Packer has also exhibited at The Denver Art Museum and Ramnarine Gallery (NYC) among other venues. He has previously received two Artist Trust GAP awards, a Bill True and Mark Halperin Award, and recently a New Work residency at The Banff Center. Packer’s use of the Sprue grid in recent large-scale sculptures provides for a system that allows his work to adeptly reference politics, science, and history.

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Joseph Park (Seattle, King County) received his MFA from California Institute of the Arts in 1990. His oil paintings present a compelling otherworld existing somewhere between childhood fantasy and film noir which creates a narrative entirely his own. Park has recently had solo exhibits at Howard House, Rena Bransten Gallery (San Francisco), and Robert & Tilton (Los Angeles) among other venues. A new series of paintings will be shown concurrently this winter at Howard House and the Frye Art Museum respectively.

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Glenn Rudolph (Seattle, King County) large-scale color photographs act as stories, chronicling the Northwest—its changing landscapes, community events, and people. His long-term projects have focused on subjects as diverse as disappearing farmland, the bankrupt Milwaukee Railroad Company, Goth warrior gangs, landless Indian tribes, neighborhood gardens, and abandoned mine sites among others. Rudolph, a former commercial fisher, has been a photographer since the mid-1970s. Rudolph's work has been exhibited widely in the United States and Canada, including the recent Baja to Vancouver exhibition (Seattle Art Museum), and is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Seattle Art Museum, the Amon Carter Museum, and numerous other corporate and public collections.

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Dan Webb (Seattle, King County) is known for his original use of sculptural materials—from balsa wood to duct tape—and also for his ironic conceptual installations. He has received the Betty Bowen Award in 2003 in addition to receiving a Betty Bowen recognition award in 1995, a 2000 Artist Trust GAP award, and a residency to attend the Bemis Center of Contemporary Arts. His work is in various permanent collections, including Seattle Art Museum’s and the private collections of Bill and Ruth True, Merrill Wright, and Bill & Aileen Krohn among others. He is currently at work on an upcoming solo show and a public art commission.

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The 2004 Artist Trust Fellowships are supported, in part, through a generous gift from Nancy & Buster Alvord

+These awards are provided through generous funding from the Washington State Arts Commission

**The 2004 Visual Arts Fellowships are supported, in part, with a generous gift from John & Shari Behnke

Statistics for the 2004 Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship

Discipline         # of Applicants         # of Recipients

Dance                     21                             2
Design                    12                             1
Theatre                   27                             3
Visual Arts             273                             15

Location            # of Applicants

King County             230
Western                   78 excluding King County
Eastern                    14
Central                     11

A total of 333 artists in Washington State applied this year. 21 artists were awarded Fellowships.