86 Artists Awarded Spring MacDowell Colony Fellowships

The MacDowell Colony has awarded fellowships to 86 artists from 18 states and nine countries. Fellows will arrive from Texas, Maine, and Montana, and from as far as Chile, Australia, China, and Israel. They are working in seven disciplines, and 29 percent identify as culturally diverse. The fellowships are for upcoming late winter and spring residencies at one of the nation's leading contemporary arts organizations.

The incoming group of MacDowell Fellows includes composers David Hertzberg and Zibuokle Martinaityte, film artists Tamar Baruch and Hannah Gross, performance artist Joseph Keckler, playwright Annie Baker, landscape architect Jane Hutton, visual artists Portia Munson, Accra Shepp, and Chadwick Rantanen, poets Victoria Chang and Ari Banias, and writers Kia Corthron, Sheila Heti, Tommy Orange, Kenneth Rosen, and Farah Stockman.

These highly competitive fellowships, each with an average value of $10,000, were awarded from a pool of 846 applications received by the most recent of MacDowell's three annual deadlines. A panel of distinguished professionals in each discipline selects Fellows based solely on their talent as evidenced by a work sample and project description. While at MacDowell, Fellows are provided a private studio for a period of up to eight weeks, accommodations, and three meals a day. Eighty-one percent of these Fellows will arrive for the first time, and half are women.

"From cutting edge film to bold new directions in electronic music, and from topical theatre to new approaches in multi-disciplinary design, this group of Fellows represents a stunning array of creative approaches to make new work destined to delight art lovers far and wide," says Executive Director Cheryl A. Young. "The sheer diversity of talent, discipline, and cultural perspectives defined by these artists is part of the formula that makes a MacDowell Fellowship so unique and rewarding."

The most recent group of Fellows includes, according to discipline:

• Architects Jane Hutton, Katherine Jenkins, Kyle Miller, Robert Pietrusko, Parker Sutton, and Christopher Woebken.
• Composers Tomás Brantmayer, Caroline Davis, Christopher Dietz, Wally Gunn, David Hertzberg, Zibuokle Martinaityte, and Steven Snowden.
• Filmmakers Tamar Baruch, Johan Grimonprez, Hannah Gross, Kristen Nutile, JP Olsen, Sierra Pettengill, Steve Reinke, Joshua Solondz, and Courtney Stephens.
• Interdisciplinary Artists Matt Bodett, Michelle Boulé, Jerome Ellis, Katie Holten, Joseph Keckler, Corinne Spencer, and Leah Stein.
• Theatre Artists Annie Baker, Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas, Dominic Finocchiaro, Peter Gray, Aleshea Harris, MJ Kaufman, Richard Marshall, Julian Maynard Smith, and Jonathan Spector.
• Visual Artists Meghan Brady, Barnett Cohen, Paul Collins, Matthew Connors, Hope Gangloff, Clay Jordan, Bridget Mullen, Portia Munson, Chadwick Rantanen, Accra Shepp, Mary Temple, and Tenesh Webber.
• Poets Alfredo Aguilar, Ari Banias, Victoria Chang, Juan Andrés García Román, Katie Hale, Sara Lefsyk, Aurora Masum-Javed, and Hoa Nguyen.
• Nonfiction Writers Cal Flyn, Vincent Granata, Frank Huyler, Christopher Ketcham, Mary Kosut, Raghav Krish, Kimberly Meyer, Joanna Rakoff, Kenneth Rosen, and Farah Stockman.
• Fiction Writers Gbolahan Adeola, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Rachel Cantor, Kia Corthron, Jennifer Down, Patrick Flanery, Amina Gautier, Rachel B. Glaser, Adam Haslett, Sheila Heti, Ladee Hubbard, Genevieve Hudson, Maxim Loskutoff, Lydia Millet, Michael Moore, Anna Noyes, Tommy Orange, and Mikkel Rosengaard.

Fellows make use of uninterrupted time to work and enjoy the rare opportunity for multidisciplinary exchange. Artists with demonstrated financial need are eligible for travel grants and stipends to cover expenses that accrue at home while away at a residency. The MacDowell Colony awards more than 300 fellowships each year. The next application deadline is April 15, 2019 for the autumn 2019 residency period.

By awarding these fellowships, The MacDowell Colony continues its long-standing mission to nurture the arts by offering creative individuals of the highest talent an inspiring environment in which they can produce enduring works of the imagination. It is a mission that has inspired important contributions to American and world culture for more than a century, and have to date earned Fellows 86 Pulitzer prizes as well as many other accolades.

Image caption (Clockwise from top left) Tamar Baruch, David Hertzberg, Kia Corthron, Tommy Orange, Matthew Connors, Joseph Keckler, Zibuokle Martinaityte, and Aleshea Harris.