CCA News
Two Artadia Awards Mark Double Win for CCA Fine Arts Faculty
Posted on Friday, January 7, 2011, by Sarah Owens
Artadia: The Fund For Art and Dialogue honored not one, but two California College of the Arts Fine Arts faculty members with a 2009 Artadia Award: Allison Smith, an assistant professor in the Sculpture and Fine Arts programs, and James Gobel, associate professor and interim chair for Painting/Drawing.
Artadia Award recipients are determined based on a rigorous jury process. Three judges, including CCA’s Fine Arts adjunct instructor, writer, and curator Glen Helfand selected the 2009 award recipients. The other judges were Diane Barber, codirector / visual arts curator at DiverseWorks Artspace in Houston, and Raechell Smith, director of H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute in San Francisco.
The jurors spent three consecutive days conducting studio visits to review the work of 15 short-listed artists drawn from a record-breaking 680 applicants from the Bay Area. Top-level awardees, Smith and Gobel will each receive a $15,000 award.
Helfand said of the process: “In the current economic climate, financial support for artists is so important, and the Artadia Awards generate a sense of excitement and reassurance that there are indeed resources—unrestricted ones—out there. The fact that Artadia started in San Francisco a decade ago makes it clear that the awards are an enduring part of the local art economy. The studio visits were extremely gratifying—it was wonderful to see the quality of work and the range of themes that emerged.”
Since 1997 Artadia: The Fund For Art and Dialogue has supported art in several communities throughout the United States through financial and networking support for artists. Every Artadia Award winner becomes a lifetime member of the Artadia network. The organization has awarded over two million dollars to practicing artists since issuing its first grant in 2002.
Related
Visit Allison Smith's website
Take a walk-through of James Gobel's Bear Hunting exhibition James Gobel's artwork