Greenville Artists Named SC Arts Commission Fellows
July 13, 2015
GREENVILLE, SC – The South Carolina Arts Commission has named Greenville artists Alice Ballard Ross and Jon Jeffrey Grier as Individual Artist Fellows. Ballard has been awarded the fellowship for craft, and Grier has been awarded the fellowship for music composition. Fellowships recognize and reward the artistic achievements of South Carolina’s exceptional individual artists. Fellowship awards are made through a highly competitive, anonymous process and are based on artistic excellence only. Each artist receives $5,000.
Ballard’s work is in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution’s Renwick Museum in Washington DC, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, the Mint Museum, the Greenville County Museum of Art, the Tweed Museum (University of Minnesota), the Medical University of South Carolina and the State Art Collections of the South Carolina Arts Commission and the Tennessee Arts Commission, along with numerous private and corporate collections. She has had numerous solo and group exhibitions, including at the Mint Museum of Art, the Greenville County Museum of Art, University of North Carolina Asheville, Pickens County Museum and the Sumter County Gallery of Art. Her work was selected for the 2011 South Carolina Biennial at 701 Center for Contemporary Art, and she was one of only 30 contemporary craft artists chosen for the traveling exhibition “Tradition/Innovation: American Masterpieces of Southern Craft and Traditional Art,” organized by South Arts and funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. From 2001-2011, she was instructor of ceramics at the Governor’s School for Arts and Humanities.
Grier has been Composer in Residence and Instructor of Music Theory at the Greenville Fine Arts Center, a magnet high school of the arts in Greenville, since 1988. Grier composes frequently for FAC student and faculty performers and also mentors the Fine Arts Center Composers’ Society and the Foothills GreenArtists, a student environmental action club. He has been named Teacher of the Year three times and received the 2015 Carl Blair Award for Commitment to Arts Education from the Greenville Metropolitan Arts Council. Awards include grants from ASCAP, the Surdna Foundation, the Metropolitan Arts Council, and the Atlanta Chamber Players, and commissions from the Kandinsky Trio, the Emrys Foundation, and the Michigan Music Teachers Association. He has published more than 30 works for piano, chamber ensembles, voice, band, orchestra, and jazz ensembles. Grier has also performed as a writer/keyboardist with jazz groups in Greenville.
Two other artists were also named fellows:
- Visual Arts: Jarod Charzewski, Charleston County
- Music Performance: Marina Lomazov, Richland County
The S.C. Arts Commission board approves fellowships based on recommendations made by out-of-state review panelists, who select fellows based solely on a review of anonymous work samples. This year’s visual arts and craft judges were Alida Fish, photographer and professor emerita at the College of Art and Design, University of the Arts in Philadelphia; Christopher Schmidt, artist and director of the Schmidt-Dean Gallery in Philadelphia.; and Mi-Kyoung Lee, artist and associate professor of Crafts and head of Fibers at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. The music composition and performance judges were Robert Tanner, composer and faculty member of the music department at Morehouse College in Atlanta; and Helen Kim, violinist, assistant concertmaster of the Atlanta Opera Orchestra and faculty member at Kennesaw State University.
Individual artists working in poetry, prose, dance choreography or dance performance may apply for the FY2017 fellowship awards. Applications open Aug. 3, 2015, and the deadline to apply is Nov. 1, 2015.
For more information about S.C. Arts Commission programs and services, visit www.SouthCarolinaArts.com or call (803) 734-8696.
About the S.C. Arts Commission
The South Carolina Arts Commission is the state agency charged with creating a thriving arts environment that benefits all South Carolinians, regardless of their location or circumstances. Created by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1967, the Arts Commission works to increase public participation in the arts by providing services, grants and leadership initiatives in three areas: arts education, community arts development and artist development. Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., the Arts Commission is funded by the state of South Carolina, by the federal government through the National Endowment for the Arts and other sources.
