For Immediate Release
Contact Cary Raymond, Marketing & Communications
617.899.3908 or craymond@fawc.org
The Fine Arts Work Center Announces 2021-2022 Fellows and Welcomes New Writing & Visual Arts Chairs
PROVINCETOWN, MA June 3, 2021 – The Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC) is pleased to announce its incoming 2021-2022 Fellows, an exceptional group of emerging artists and writers selected from a pool of more than 1300 applicants from across the globe. It is an honor to share the names of the 2021-2022 Fellows below.
The 2021-2022 Writing & Visual Arts Fellows
The 2021-2022 Fiction Fellowships were awarded to
Molly Anders of London, England
Shastri Akella of Amherst, MA
Sterling HolyWhiteMountain of Blackfeet Reservation
Vedran Husić of Tampa, FL (returning, second-year Fellow)
Zeynep Özakat of Istanbul, Turkey
The 2021-2022 Poetry Fellowships were awarded to
Laura Cresté of Brooklyn, NY
Tracy Fuad of Berlin, Germany
Eduardo Martinez-Leyva of Washington DC
Samyak Shertok of Salt Lake City, UT
H.R. Webster of Ypsilanti, MI (returning, second-year Fellow)
The 2021-2022 Visual Arts Fellowships were awarded to
Ellen Akimoto of Leipzig, Germany
Austin Ballard of Ridgewood, NY (returning, second-year Fellow)
Kevin Brisco Jr. of Memphis, TN
Widline Cadet of New York, NY
Emsaki of New Haven, CT
Nick Fagan of Richmond, VA
Elizabeth Flood of Hamilton, NY
Lavaughan Jenkins of Boston, MA
Tom Pappas of Ridgewood, NY (returning, second-year Fellow)
Georden West of Boston, MA
Visual Arts & Writing Committee Leadership
The Work Center is also pleased to welcome painter and master printer Andrew Mockler as incoming Chair of the Visual Arts Committee and poet Mark Wunderlich as Chair of the Writing Committee. The Visual Arts and Writing Committees are vital to the successful administration of the Work Center’s signature Fellowship.
For over 50 years, the Work Center has annually welcomed 20 Fellows to its historic grounds in Provincetown, the nation’s oldest art community, for seven months, from October 1 through April 30, providing these artists and writers with uninterrupted time and space in which to make their work.
Fellows are selected in a blind, multi-round jury process purely based on the merits and promise of their submissions; while living in Provincetown, they receive housing, workspace, and a modest monthly stipend. The current financial value of an individual fellowship is approximately $55,000.
Past Fellows include artists Elliott Hundley, Jennifer Packer, Jacolby Satterwhite, and Lisa Yuskavage; poets Louise Glück, Major Jackson, Tyehimba Jess, and Yusef Komunyakaa; and fiction writers Michael Cunningham, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ann Patchett, and Jacqueline Woodson.
Like so many arts and cultural institutions, the Work Center has had to temporarily close its grounds due to public health concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. The original start date for this year’s fellowship of October 1, 2020 has been postponed to October 1, 2021; the fellowship will conclude on April 30, 2022.
During the time the Work Center’s grounds were closed, the organization moved forward with an ambitious renovation of its campus, as part of a long-term facilities master plan. This phase of the project includes the transformation of the Stanley Kunitz Common Room, Hudson D. Walker Gallery, and courtyard. This transformation will make these spaces more accessible and welcoming to the public as well as the incoming Fellow class.
In the words of 2019 National Book Award winner and past Fellow Susan Choi: “Before I came to the Fine Arts Work Center, I hadn’t realized how much I longed for a homeland and a people and a folkways.” The Fine Arts Work Center continues to strengthen both its physical location and its institutional culture, in service of a vibrant and incomparable creative community for the next generation of artists and writers.
Andrew Mockler, incoming Chair of the Visual Arts Committee, is a painter and master printer living in Brooklyn, NY. At his printmaking workshop, Jungle Press Editions, Andrew collaborates with artists in lithography, etching, woodcut, and monoprint. He has taught at Yale School of Art, RISD, Columbia University, and Hunter College. He has lectured at Cornell University, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Christies New York, and The Baltimore Museum of Art. He had a fellowship at The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown in 1990-91. His works in painting and printmaking have been exhibited in galleries and museums, including The Addison Gallery of American Art, The Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, George Billis Gallery (New York and Los Angeles) and Metaphor Gallery (Brooklyn).
Mark Wunderlich, newly elected Chair of the Writing Committee, is the author of four books of poems, the most recent of which is God of Nothingness, published earlier this year by Graywolf Press. He is the director of the Bennington Writing Seminars graduate writing program, and was named a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. He has twice been a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center.
The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown is a nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging the growth and development of emerging visual artists and writers and to restoring the year-round vitality of the historic art community of Provincetown. The Work Center is internationally known for its acclaimed 7-month residency program granting fellowships to 20 emerging writers and artists, as well as its open enrollment Summer Workshop Program, an online writing program 24PearlStreet, and an extensive series of year-round cultural and virtual events, and exhibitions. The Work Center values diversity and inclusion and seeks to build and maintain a community and culture that celebrates and values diverse backgrounds, identities and perspectives.
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