DDOA Announces 2022 Individual Artist Fellowship Awardees

The content of this post was taken from a press release by the Delaware Division of the Arts. 

Twenty-five Delaware artists are being recognized by the Delaware Division of the Arts for the high quality of their artwork. Work samples from 132 Delaware choreographers; composers; musicians; writers; and folk, media, and visual artists were reviewed by out-of-state arts professionals, considering demonstrated creativity and skill in their art form. The 25 selected fellows reside throughout Delaware including Dover, Georgetown, Hockessin, Lewes, Magnolia, Middletown, Newark, Smyrna, Townsend, and Wilmington.

Awards were given in three categories: $10,000 for the Masters Award; $6,000 for the Established Professional Award; and $3,000 for the Emerging Professional Award. Fellows are required to offer at least one exhibit or performance during the upcoming year, providing an opportunity for the public to experience their work. Additionally, the work of the Fellows will be featured in a group exhibition, Award Winners XXII, at the Biggs Museum of American Art tentatively set for June 3 through July 23, 2022.

“Individual Artist Fellowship grants recognize Delaware artists for their outstanding work and commitment to artistic excellence,” said Jessica Ball, director of Delaware Division of the Arts. “The financial award allows them to pursue advanced training, purchase equipment and materials, or fulfill other needs to advance their careers. The Division of the Arts understands that artists have been hard hit by the economic fallout of the pandemic and was pleased to be able to allocate some additional funds to recognize more artists this year.”

The Masters Fellowship is open to different artistic disciplines each year. In Fiscal Year 2022, Masters Fellowship applications were accepted in Literary Arts and Media Arts from artists who had previously received an Established Professional Fellowship. In addition to exemplifying high artistic quality, Masters Fellowship applicants must demonstrate their involvement and commitment to the arts in Delaware and beyond. Listed below are the Delaware Division of the Arts 2022 Individual Artist Fellows.

Linda Blaskey has been awarded this year’s Masters Fellowship in Literature: Poetry. Blaskey’s work has been chosen for inclusion in Best New Poets, 2014, and in North Carolina’s Poetry on the Bus project for National Poetry Month. She is poetry/interview editor emerita for Broadkill Review, is coordinator for the Dogfish Head Poetry Prize, and current editor for the new online journal, Quartet. She organized a presentation of Icelandic poetry for the Rehoboth Beach Film Festival, and her work was included in Southern Delaware Choral Society’s presentation of Haydn: “Mass in the Time of War.” She sat on the panel, “Collaborative Publishing,” for Western Maryland Indie Lit Festival at Frostburg State University. Blaskey’s work has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, and she is the author of four poetry collections, two of which are collaborations, one forthcoming in 2022. She lives with her husband on a small horse/goat farm in Sussex County, Delaware.

2022 Individual Artist Fellows
Masters Award ($10,000)

• Linda Blaskey, Lincoln - Literature: Poetry

Established Professional Award ($6,000)

• JoAnn Balingit, Newark - Literature: Creative Nonfiction
• Joseph Barbaccia, Georgetown - Visual Arts: Crafts
• Tim Broscious, Townsend - Music: Contemporary Performance
• Jamie Brunson, Wilmington - Literature: Playwriting
• Caleb Curtiss, Newark - Literature: Poetry
• t. a. hahn, Middletown - Visual Arts: Sculpture
• Jeff Knoettner, Wilmington - Jazz: Performance
• Roger Matsumoto, Newark - Visual Arts: Photography
• Isai Jess Muñoz, Hockessin - Music: Solo Recital
• Mia Muratori, Wilmington - Visual Arts: Painting
• Tad Sare, Wilmington - Media Arts: Video/Film
• Aaron Terry, Wilmington - Visual Arts: Works on Paper
• William Torrey, Middletown - Literature: Fiction

Emerging Professional Award ($3,000)

• Stephanie Boateng, Newark - Visual Arts: Painting
• Christina Durborow, Wilmington - Literature: Creative Nonfiction
• Kiara Florez, Magnolia - Visual Arts: Painting
• Gregory Hammond, Wilmington - Literature: Fiction
• Jim Hawkins, Smyrna - Literature: Playwriting
• Gail Husch, Wilmington - Visual Arts: Crafts
• Alice Morris, Lewes  - Literature: Poetry
• Maia Palmer, Wilmington - Visual Arts: Works on Paper
• TANKSLEY, Middletown - Music: Contemporary Performance
• Leanna Thongvong, Dover - Folk Art: Visual Arts
• Katie West, Wilmington - Visual Arts: Photography

To contact an individual artist, please email or call: Roxanne Stanulis, Program Officer, Artist Programs and Services, Roxanne.Stanulis@delaware.gov or 302.577.8283. The next deadline for Individual Artist Fellowship applications will be Monday, August 1, 2022.

City Theater Company Jumps Into New Season and a New Home — All at "ONCE"!

By Mike Logothetis
Mike Logothetis grew up in North Wilmington, performing in school and local theater productions. He lives in Newark, but you can find him wherever the arts are good.

City Theater Company launches season with ONCE. Photo by Joe del Tufo. 

To open its 2021-2022 season, City Theater Company (CTC) begins a new residency at The Delaware Contemporary (TDC) on the Wilmington Riverfront. CTC Artistic Director Kerry Kristine McElrone is “excited to bring the communal, immediate, accessible experience of art in live action to The Delaware Contemporary’s patrons, and to introduce City Theater Company’s audiences to all that they have to offer.”

McElrone added: “Our approach to theater and improv considers the art form of live performance to be a creative collaboration between players, directors, designers, writers, and the audience.”

It should be noted that CTC has been entertaining audiences virtually during the pandemic with online content but is eager to get back to live performances (and audiences) starting with the musical Once. The 2012 Tony Award–winner for Best Musical is based on the Irish musical film and features actors playing their own instruments onstage. The musical features 12 performers/musicians and a child actor.

The space inside TDC is intimate and three rows on each side flank a central performance area with a larger stage at one end and a small musicians’ area at the other. In this way, the audience is sometimes being directed to follow back-and-forth dialog like an attendee at a tennis match. (It’s not that extreme, but noticeable during certain dialogs.) But the space also allows musicians to sit in all corners of the room, providing a true unamplified “surround sound.” A large bank of TV screens looms over the stage end and provides clever multimedia effects for the show.

However, the acoustics are tricky and only the full ensemble numbers properly fill the room. While pleasant, the solos and intimate duets could stand to be a bit louder to properly resonate with the audience. Some of the dialog got swallowed up by the room on Opening Night, but the performers portrayed the emotions and plot devices well enough to move the narrative forward.

If you’re not familiar with the story, an Irish busker/”Hoover repairman” meets a plucky Czech woman in Dublin and their passion for music — and each other — takes them to wonderfully sonic places. You don’t need to understand much of the accented dialog to enjoy the incredible music Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová composed for the original 2007 film written by John Carney — no, not our current Delaware Governor. ;)

And it’s the music that shines in this production. Righteous Jolly is listed as “Guy” in the program but is “The Man” whenever he’s featured. Jolly has the musical chops to deliver glorious melodies and guitar accompaniments plus the charisma to have the audience root for him. His wounded and vulnerable Guy has an inner drive to better himself by spending as much time as possible with new acquaintance “Girl.” Girl is portrayed in a lovingly restrained way by Julia Natoli, whose talented vocals and piano-playing act as the perfect complement to Jolly’s Guy. He’s sociable but shy, while she’s quiet but direct. Together, they are a power couple of sorts in their world. The two enjoy a whirlwind relationship that never quite gets to where both think it could. They drag their family and friends along for the ride while the audience gets to gleefully watch it all unfold.

Guy and Girl soar to new heights in duets like “When Your Mind’s Made Up” and “If You Want Me” which included an inventive dream-quality choreography. But the show highlight is the Oscar-winning song “Falling Slowly.” Simply put, this is one of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces of music to come out of Hollywood or Broadway (or Ireland/Czech Republic) in the past 25-40 years. Jolly and Natoli nail it. (Song co-writer Irglová once said: “This song was written from a perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are.”)

But this is not a morbid or depressing show. At its heart, Once shows the joy of making music together here and now, regardless of its potentially fleeting nature. The cast includes fantastic local musicians who turn out to be pretty solid actors. Aidan McDonald (“Billy”) and Emma Romeo Moyer (“Bank Manager”) were lively whenever in the spotlight. Moyer’s off-key “Abandoned in Bandon” was a hoot! The ensemble numbers “Gold” and “Ej Pada Pada” were delightful. And not all of the Guy/Girl songs are about unrequited love as “Broken Hearted Hoover Fixer Sucker Guy” happily refutes.

Director/Music Director Joe Trainor put together wonderful musical arrangements for his cast. Some of the stage blocking was clunky, but as the company better grows into its new space I think cooperated movement will improve. Credit should be given to McElrone for taking on such an ambitious project to restart CTC live productions in a new performance space after the pandemic. While there are some minor issues to iron out, Once is a worthwhile return of CTC to a Wilmington community looking for earnest live theater.

Once will run for seven performances through next Saturday (December 10-18). Curtain is at 8:00pm, save for the lone Sunday matinee (2:00pm, December 12). The show lasts just under 2.5 hours, which includes one 15-minute intermission. City Theater Company’s new home is at The Delaware Contemporary located at 200 South Madison, Wilmington, DE 19801. Tickets ($30-40) can be purchased at the CTC box office or online. Special ticket pricing is available for military personnel, and students. Please call the box office at 302.220.8285 or visit city-theater.org for details.

City Theater plans, on average, two big shows each season — which runs from December to late spring. These shows typically run two or three weekends. Up next spring is Blues in My Soul by Delaware playwright David Robson.

See city-theater.org. 

Artist Nanci Hersh Unveils Pandemic-Inspired Exhibit "...From the Zoom Room"

Thumbnails of Nanci Hersh's newest exhibit, Unmasked: Portraits From the Zoom Room.

In March 2020, the world changed; so did the work of Delaware artist Nanci Hersh. 

The pandemic threw us all into a surreal yet voyeuristic world, presenting a unique opportunity for everyone to be their “unmasked” selves, for better or worse. The elevation of Zoom technology changed how we interacted and gave us a new perspective­­ — bizarrely intimate, both authentic and contrived at the same time.

Fascinated by this opportunity to observe and capture a microcosm of human experiences within the pandemic, Hersh has developed her latest series working from screenshots taken via Zoom conferences since March 2020. The exhibit, Unmasked: Portraits from the Zoom Room, opens November 15, 2021 and runs through January 14, 2022 at The Mill Space, a co-working loft in the heart of downtown Wilmington. 

With every screenshot captured, she found a different story, a new perspective, and a recognizable silver lining — ­illuminating the humor, boredom, pathos, and beauty that has kept us all connected.

Many, if not most, of the subjects are artists, educators, and “everyday” people that she shares space with in her role as Executive Director of Delaware Institute for the Arts in Education. Hersh has taken the challenges of the past 18 months and transformed those seemingly endless Zoom meetings into works of art. 

All her paintings are acrylic on synthetic non-woven paper, mounted on cradled birch panels and framed in museum black floater framers, 15.5”x25.5”. To date, there are 26 “Zoom Room portraits” in total.

The Opening Reception for Hersh's exhibit will be held Wednesday, November 17, 2021, from 4:30-6:30pm at The Mill Space, 1007 N. Orange Street, 4th Floor, Wilmington, DE 19801. Additional exhibition hours are 8:00-11:30am and 1:30-5:00pm Monday through Friday, or by appointment.

ABOUT NANCI HERSH
Nanci Hersh is a contemporary mixed media artist who draws directly from her personal life. Her passion is to share stories to reveal our universal connections and inspire others through art. She is also an illustrator, educator, arts advocate and administrator as Executive Director of the Delaware Institute for the Arts in Education. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States including “Riverfront 20/20” and “Farthest From the Ordinary” at The Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington, DE, “50 States/200 Artists” at the Museum of Encaustic Art in Santa Fe, NM, “Eons Beyond the Rib” at Seraphin Gallery in Philadelphia, PA “Paper Work” at the Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie and “The Demoiselles Revisited” at Francis M. Naumann Fine Art, NYC, along with solo exhibitions in PA, NJ, DE, and HI. Nanci has received numerous honors including three purchase awards from the State Foundation of Culture and the Arts, Hawai’i, and three Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grants. Her work is included in the Public Collections of Museum of Encaustic Art, Johnson & Johnson, Leland Portland Cement, and OSI Pharmaceuticals to name a few.

To enjoy more of Nanci Hersh’s work, visit nancihersh.com.