Robert Sterling Clark Foundation Funds Cultural Exchange at VSC

$100,000 grant will fund African and South American Artists at Vermont Studio Center

[JOHNSON, VT] — The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation Fellowships at the Vermont Studio Center (VSC) are being established to support the development of international artists and to broaden their opportunities for intercultural dialogue here in the United States.

Starting in 2011, five artists from Africa will arrive in Johnson, Vermont to spend two months working at the Vermont Studio Center with 70 other artists in residence, providing all the participants with an exciting opportunity for exchange and dialogue in the largest artists’ residency program in the United States. The following year will see five more artists from South America do the same. When their eight-week studio program finishes in Vermont, the artists spend a week in NYC with the Triangle Artists Workshop going to studios, galleries and museums and meeting New Yorkers.

The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation grant to VSC is part of a new initiative to promote international cultural engagement.

"The Robert Sterling Clark Foundation is pleased to be able to provide visual arts fellowships to African and Latin American artists in 2011 and 2012," said Margaret Ayers, President of the Foundation. "The objective of the program is to promote global understanding through the development of sustained relationships and good will. Sustained relationships are possible only when there is dialogue and mutual respect. We believe that the Vermont Studio Center provides an environment that will encourage such relationships and we are proud to be their partner."

“We're very pleased and proud to have been awarded this grant," said Fred Osborne, chair of VSC Board. "We have a long history of welcoming artists from all over the world and this country to our international Center and its studios in the beautiful environs of Northern Vermont, and have seen how the exchange of cultures and ideas creates profound understandings and connections within the whole community." 

VSC's Executive Director George Pearlman added, "The Studio Center provides opportunities for impressions and exchanges not just in the studio, but also in the dining hall, through lectures, gallery openings, at the local coffee shop and interaction with Vermont children in the local schools. This grant will have a broad impact on the community as well as on the artists.”
 
Artists living on the African continent may apply by April 1 for a 2011 residency. To learn more about the fellowship, or to download an application, please visit our website. For additional fellowship and application information, please contact David Grozinsky at 802-635-2727 or admissions@vermontstudiocenter.org.