WINSTON-SALEM – Greg Shelnutt, director of the Visual Arts Program at the North Carolina School of the Arts, has been selected to receive a $5,000 Fellowship from the Surdna Arts Teachers Fellowship Program.  The North Carolina School of the Arts, where Shelnutt has taught for the past eight years, also has been awarded a complementary grant of $1,500 to support post-fellowship activities in the School.

The Surdna Arts Teachers Fellowship Program (SATF), a venture of the Surdna Foundation’s Arts Program, recently announced Fellowship recipients for the eighth round of its national awards. Sixteen outstanding teachers representing 14 specialized public arts high schools from around the country were selected from an initial pool of 57 applicants. The teachers excel in a broad spectrum of visual, performing, and literary arts.

Award recipients were evaluated by a peer review panel based on demonstrated excellence both as artists and teachers. All permanently assigned, full- and part-time arts faculty in specialized, public arts high schools were eligible to submit applications.

Shelnutt plans to use the money to travel to Bendigo, Australia, where he will be an artist-in-residence at LaTrobe University’s 121 View Street facility. While there he will also work with noted Australian sculptor Dr. Anton Hassel, a specialist in bell casting and co-founder of Australian Bell, a specialty foundry in Mia Mia, Victoria, Australia.

“I am honored to have been awarded this Fellowship,” Shelnutt said. “It will help me continue to inspire arts students from across North Carolina.”

Ellen B. Rudolph, Surdna Foundation’s program director for arts, said, “We’re thrilled to be able to offer these Fellowships to teachers of the arts. By focusing on their own creative work and interacting with professional artists and colleagues, these teachers are exposed to new ideas and practices that they can carry back to the classroom.  After eight rounds of Fellowships — and 160 Fellows — we’ve witnessed the transformative effect of the Fellowship experience on both the individuals and the schools.”

Greg Shelnutt earned a B.F.A. from East Carolina University and an M.F.A. from the University of Georgia. From 1988-2000, he taught sculpture at the University of Mississippi. In 1991, he taught for the University of Georgia's Studies Abroad in Cortona, Italy. In 1992, he was a visiting artist at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia. His residencies include the Community Council for the Arts in Kinston, N.C.; the Association for Visual Artists in Chattanooga, Tenn.; and the New York Mills Arts Retreat in New York Mills, Minn. In 2003, he received a Regional Artist Project Grant from the Arts Council of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County, and in 1994 he received a Visual Artist Fellowship from the Mississippi Arts Commission and an Emerging Artist Grant from the Jerome Foundation. 

His work has been in more than 300 solo, invitational, juried, and group exhibitions in galleries and museums such as Art in General in New York, N.Y.; C.A.G.E., Cincinnati, Ohio; COMUS Gallery, Portland, Ore.; Conemara Conservancy, Plano, Texas; Delta Axis, Memphis, Tenn.; Downey Museum of Art, Downey, Calif.; Galeria Mesa, Mesa, Ariz.; Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, N.J.; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Tenn.; John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, Wisc.; Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldendale, Wash.; Meridian Museum of Art, Meridian, Miss.; Ministry of Finance Gallery, Melbourne, Australia; Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, Miss.; the National Ornamental Metal Museum, Memphis, Tenn.; Palazzo Casalli, Cortona, Italy; Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago, Ill.; Ringling School of Art, Sarasota, Fla.; SODARCO, Montreal, Canada; Strathmore Hall, Bethesda, Md.; Taiwan Museum of Art, Taichung, Taiwan; Three Rivers Arts Festival, PPG Plaza, Pittsburgh, Pa.; the University of Hawaii at Manoa; The William King Regional Art Center, Abingdon, Va.; and ArtStation, Auckland, New Zealand.

About the Surdna Foundation

The Surdna Foundation, a national family foundation established in 1917, helps support organizations in five program areas: Environment, Community Revitalization, Effective Citizenry, the Nonprofit Sector, and Arts.  Additional information can be found on the Foundation’s website at: www.surdna.org. 

The Surdna Foundation’s Arts program aims, in various ways, to strengthen the artistic abilities of teens. The goal of the Surdna Arts Teachers Fellowship Program is to support the artistic revitalization of their arts teachers. Surdna’s goal is to help them increase their effectiveness as they guide and train young people for careers or advanced study.

For the next round of Fellowships, Letters of Intent to Apply are due by Nov. 14, 2008.  For application information, go to: www.surdna.org/artsteachersfellowship.

About the North Carolina School of the Arts

The North Carolina School of the Arts was the first state-supported, residential school of its kind in the nation.  Established by the NC General Assembly in 1963, NCSA opened in Winston-Salem in 1965 and became part of the University of North Carolina in 1972.  More than 1,100 students from middle school through graduate school train for careers in the arts in five professional schools:  Dance, Design and Production (including a Visual Arts Program), Drama, Filmmaking and Music.  For more information about NCSA, visit www.ncarts.edu.