2010 Charlotte Street Visual Artist Awards announced
Recipients will receive cash award and have work featured in group show
Caleb Taylor, Ari Fish and Sonie Ruffin are this year's recipients of the Charlotte Street Visual Art Awards
Friday, January 29, 2010
Clothing designer Ari Fish, fabric artist Sonie Ruffin and painter Caleb Taylor have been awarded the Charlotte Street Visual Artist Awards for 2010.
The artists were selected Wednesday by a panel of arts professionals and visiting artists from a pool of 40 nominees. Each of the recipients will receive a $10,000 grant and have their work featured in an awards exhibition later in the year.
The three artists were introduced and examples of their work were shown at an awards reception this Wednesday at the Helix Architecture + Design building downtown.
Ari Fish, a 2006 graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute, said that her work expresses Utopian ideals and that she likes to create "clothes that make you feel powerful." While creating a Utopian vision generally involves collaboration, Fish acknowledged that "the strength of the collective begins with the power of the individual."
Her designs might have been deemed too "spaced out" for Project Runway, but it's exactly this imaginative quality that makes Fish so inspirational to her fellow artists. Panelists said they admire the architectural nature of her garments and the way they suggest new ways of being in the world.
Sonie Ruffin is a self-taught fabric artist whose art, stories, workshops and exhibits have made her an established figure in the local and national arts communities. Her book, The Soulful Art of African-American Quilts: 19 Bold, Improvisational Projects, was published in 2007.
In Ruffin's quilt-inspired art there is an inter-stitching not just of fabric but of community and culture. She says she strives to open a dialogue with the viewer so that she can "create from what I know and share my community with their community."
"Switzerland" by Caleb Taylor, 2008, Oil on Canvas
Caleb Taylor was recognized for his large-scale paintings in which shapes, patterns and colors emerge in anatomical arches from a vast negative space.
Taylor earned a degree in ceramics and painting from Northwest Missouri State University and an MFA in painting from Montana State University in 2008. Examples of his painting can be seen at www.calebtaylorart.com.
In his remarks at the reception, visiting panelist Gregory Volk, a New York-based art critic and freelance curator, spoke about the importance of artists staying connected with other cities, countries and cultures. He cited the importance of having an institution like the Charlotte Street Foundation that promotes the arts with both intensity and vision.
"Something truly visionary and with sustenance is going on here," Volk said. "In our vast, teeming culture, visual art is a niche enterprise, but it's essential."
The Charlotte Street Foundation has supported local arts since 1997, and has given away more than $450,000 to 71 artists from the Kansas City area. In addition to the visual arts awards, Charlotte Street supports artists with free studio and exhibition space, coordinates public exposure for art events, and advocates on behalf of artists with business, civic and philanthropic leaders. A 10-year retrospective is available at local galleries and Rainy Day Books in Fairway.
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