2018 Maine Artist Fellows
The Maine Arts Commission’s Fellowships reward artistic excellence, advance the careers of Maine artists, and promote public awareness of the strength and distinction of Maine’s creative sector. Awards are made solely on the basis of artistic excellence. Due to the competitiveness of the Individual Artist Fellowship program and to avoid conflicts of interest, all jurors selected for the program reside outside Maine. The 7 Fellows for 2018 are featured below.
Meet the 2018 Fellows
Visual Arts Fellow
Jackie Brown
Jackie Brown’s work grows from an interest in nature, science, and a belief in the arts as a way to enrich how people see, experience, and understand the world.
A professor of art at Bowdoin College since 2014, Jackie focuses primarily on sculptural installation. Her work invites viewers into imagined biological systems where forms may appear as either healthy or harmful growths.
Each work evolves through installations that shift and grow with each exhibition, suggesting limitless potential for growth, movement, and transformation.
Belvedere Handcraft Fellow
Danielle Rose Byrd
Danielle Rose Byrd sees her work as an ongoing flirtation with boundaries, reflecting 15 years spent on the Maine coast.
Using mostly traditional hand tools and techniques, she creates carved bowls and woodenware infused with color, intricate decoration, and improvised shaping.
The interaction of function and form encourages viewers to experience the delight of an object rather than being limited by its conventionally accepted purpose.
Literary Arts Fellow
Matthew Clark
Matthew Clark grew up in Woolwich at the end of a dirt road overlooking the Kennebec River. After a decade away in Massachusetts, Iowa, and Wyoming, he returned to Maine and resumed work with the carpenters he had apprenticed with during high school and college.
He closely observed the details of working life, including worn-out boots, old tools, and the management of dust, believing that watching hands and listening to workers’ language could reveal deeply human wisdom.
Matthew planned to use the Fellowship to take time away from carpentry to research and write a longer work about a specialty wood mill in Mercer, the colonial trade in mast pines for the British Navy, and contemporary ideas about the handmade.
Media Arts Fellow
Sandy Cohen
Sandy Cohen is a digital artist living on the Blue Hill Peninsula. He first encountered a computer in 1966 while studying human perception as a graduate student in England.
The combination of computers and photography made a lasting impression. Today, he writes programs that transform the act of listening to music into a visual experience.
Beginning with a digital photograph, Sandy abstracts the image through software that processes piano performances from sound into color. His project The Bindu arranges color according to the pitch of each musical note.
Performing Arts Fellow
Marita Kennedy-Castro
Marita Kennedy-Castro is a Portland-based dancer and performer who has studied West African dance since 1999.
She is drawn to the way the tradition honors connections among people and the rhythms of nature by incorporating images of life’s cycles and seasons.
Her organization, the multicultural dance ensemble Many Waters Arts, was built to develop intercultural collaborations and create new paths to healing through performances, classes, and workshops.
Traditional Arts Fellow
Cindy Larock
Cindy Larock grew up in Lewiston’s large French-speaking community during a period when many neighbors were determined to assimilate into Anglophone culture. That shift left later generations with fewer connections to their French heritage.
In the 1970s, Cindy reconnected with Franco heritage through New England contra dancing and traditional French Canadian fiddle music.
She grew from a dance apprentice into a master teacher of Québécois step and social dancing. Cindy teaches social dance, directs a community folk orchestra, and organizes a women’s singing group for traditional Franco sing-alongs.
Craft Fellow
Brian Reid
Brian Reid left a position as a mechanical engineer to pursue furniture making. His work led to teaching at leading woodworking and furniture programs around the world.
Although furniture making has become increasingly digital, Brian considers craftsmanship the most important and satisfying part of the practice. He believes the beauty of an object is enhanced by visible and tactile evidence of the maker’s hand.
His fascination with pattern led him to study Islamic pattern, Japanese katagami, and symmetries found in nature.
Maine Artist Fellows by Year
View current and past Maine Artist Fellows by calendar year. New Fellows begin their fellowship term at the start of each calendar year.