Dear Friends of VCCA,
The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts is centered on a simple and powerful idea: welcoming artists to a creative space where they can focus completely on their work. We put our mission into practice in two locations, Amherst, Virginia and Auvillar, France, and further our reach through international exchange.
Within the last month, I’ve visited our international partners in Salzburg and in Schwandorf and spent time at the Moulin à Nef in Auvillar. All three programs share an extraordinary physical environment, deep history, creative energy, and dynamic leadership focused on enabling the work of artists. Open Studios at the Moulin à Nef and Mt. San Angelo in October brought the creativity of Fellows in residence to the fore, expanding our mission outward.
During the month of October, we also brought Fellows and friends together at gatherings in Philadelphia and in Roanoke, reestablishing bonds and toasting friendships.
As the holidays approach, I encourage you to reach out to your VCCA friends to tap into the spirit that makes this organization unique. The bonds between us all are a powerful, positive force for creativity.
Yours,
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Joy Peterson Heyrman
Executive Director
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VCCA Fellows selected for inaugural SBC-VCCA Fellowship
Congratulations to the multi-disciplinary team of VCCA Fellows selected for the inaugural Sweet Briar College/VCCA Collaborative Teaching Fellowship. Writer Courtney Balestier, conceptual artist Shea Hembry, and composer Aaron Wyanski will teach “A Multiplicity of Narratives,” a section of Expression and the Arts, a foundational arts course within Sweet Briar College’s new core curriculum. The team will teach while in residence at VCCA during the spring 2019 three-week short session, when students take only one course at a time.
The call for proposals for this Fellowship drew over 100 applicants from across the country and around the world. “The review panel was very impressed with the high degree of intellectual and artistic rigor behind the course proposals. We are grateful to every artistic team that submitted a proposal and for the time and thoughtfulness that went in to designing the courses,” said Carrie Brown, Director of the Center for Creativity, Design and the Arts.
The team identified empathy as a skill at the heart of great art. “This course will cultivate that skill through an immersive, interdisciplinary exercise in narrative development, merging concepts of visual art, literature, and sound art to explore voice, point of view, and identity.”
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Next Residency Application Deadline is January 15, 2019
The next application deadline is fast approaching. Fully-funded fellowships offered in this cycle include the
Alonzo Davis Fellowship for African American or Latinx visual artists, writers, or composers and the
Steven Petrow LGBTQ Fellowship open in all genres to those who self-identify as LGBTQ.
If you are in the Mid-Atlantic region (New York, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia) you are eligible to apply for a fully funded two-week or one-month residency supported by the
MidAtlantic Arts Foundation.
Those in the Charlottesville area can apply for residencies that are partially supported by the
J & E Berkley Foundation.
Please click on the links for specifics about each Fellowship. Deadline is
January 15, 2019.
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Bernard Resch studio, October 2018
Photo by Paige Critcher
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Volunteer Day this Saturday
Join VCCA Fellows and staff for a day of groundskeeping and fall cleaning. Lunch provided.
Saturday, November 3, 2018
9:30 a.m. - 2 p.m.
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The 2019 Prix Moulin à Nef has been awarded to
Flora Basthier
of Limoges, France.
The
Prix Moulin à Nef
is awarded to a visual artist from the Nouvelle Aquitaine or
Occitaine
regions of Southwest France, the region where VCCA’s Moulin à Nef Studio Center is located. The prize offers the selected artist a fully-funded, month-long residency at VCCA in Virginia.
Born in 1992, Flora Basthier studied at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Art in her city at the end of high school. In June 2015 she obtained a DNSEP Art. Flora's work revolves around the concept of displacement, between process and trace, she tries to transcribe matter in motion, in a fleeting aesthetic. Through multiple mediums such as performative drawing, photography, video, ceramics and publishing, Flora tries to capture changes of state, to test the material and to test its limits, to reveal things that we do not see.
Basthier
will be in residence at VCCA in 2019.
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Are You Thankful for VCCA?
Thanksgiving is coming and many of us will dutifully be spending more time in the kitchen. As you stir the stuffing, imagine what cooking will feel like in a brand new Studio Barn kitchen at VCCA.
Thanks to a $20,000 matching challenge by the Marietta McNeill Morgan and Samuel Tate Morgan, Jr. Trust, the Studio Barn kitchen is in line to receive a much-needed facelift this spring.
New appliances, countertops, cabinets, tables, and more are planned for this treasured gathering space, but we need your help to match the challenge.
Recent Grants
The
J & E Berkley Foundation awarded VCCA a $5,000 grant to support the cost of residencies for artists from the Foundation's coverage area which includes Augusta, Albemarle, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, Madison, Nelson, Orange, and Rockingham counties, and the city of Charlottesville.
The
Virginia Commission for the Arts awarded VCCA a Technical Assistance Grant of $1,000 to subsidize VCCA staff attendance at the Alliance of Artists' Communities annual conference.
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Cafe Press Store
The holidays are right around the corner and just in time, VCCA has a new online store! Find the perfect gift for your VCCA friends, from t-shirts to tote bags, at
VCCA CafePress store.
Shop online anytime and have your items shipped directly to you. All proceeds benefit VCCA and its programs.
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VCCA/SBC Salon
Thursday, December 6, 2018
7:30 p.m., Sweet Briar College
Cochran Library, Reahard Learning Gallery
Presentations and performances by VCCA Fellows. Open to the public.
The Poetry of Karen Skolfield and T.J. Anderson, III
Thursday, January 17, 2019
7:30 p.m., Riverviews Artspace
Rosel H. Schewel Theater, Lynchburg, VA
Skolfield and Anderson are recipients of the Collateral Reparations: Military Veterans and the Healing Power of Artists Residencies Fellowship.
May 2, 2019
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
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