Pops by the Sea | 2018 Program

2018 Fellows

S

Three winners will use separate awards to individually produce a Christmas album; pen a novel about a hermit; and paint a portrait series of Caribbean families living on the Outer Cape

ince 2014, the Arts Foundation of Cape Cod (AFCC) has provided fellowships to working artists in the region as a way to nurture their talents and support projects that reflect their creativity. Each year, the submissions the AFCC receives showcase the artistry that abounds in this section of the state. “I wish I could share all the applications with everybody,” AFCC Executive Director Julie Wake says. “You wouldn’t believe the caliber of work being done here. It’s so impressive.” As in previous years, fellowships were given out in three categories: Written Word, Visual Arts, and Performing Arts. Each received $1,500 to support their creative talents. This year’s fellows, Wake says, “are each so different and they embody the great work being done by our Cape Cod artists. They are doing work that the rest of our community needs to know about. It’s really important work and it’s being done here on the Cape.”

SUSAN BLOOD (WRITTEN WORD)

Juggling multiple day jobs that include serving as the marketing director for the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater (WHAT), marketing coordinator for the Left Bank Gallery in Orleans, and a grant writer at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Blood is like many working artists living on the Cape. But she is most passionate about writing, something that has long been a part of who she is. “I’ve got all this stuff spilling out of me and need to have a place for it to go,” she says of the craft. Two years ago, Blood was approached by Surface Popper Publications to see if she was interested in publishing a collection of her humorous essays about life’s trials and tribulations. Those essays found their way into her first book, “How Not to Do Things” which was released in June 2017.

52

“It was kind of unbelievable,” she says, an adjective she also used to describe her Fellowship. First the book and now the AFCC Fellowship, she says, have served as validation for her work. A mother of two who lives in Orleans with her husband Chris, a sound engineer, she is using this year’s fellowship towards her second book, a novel about spending a year alone as a hermit. “I’m hoping that this fellowship with the Arts Foundation gives me, if not the time and the space, the permission and sort of expectation to write this book,” she says. “Now I’m writing more than ever because I have this fellowship.”

Learn more about Susan Blood at www.trouttowers.com.

JAMES EVERETT STANLEY (VISUAL ARTS)

As the son of an immigrant – his father is from Guyana in South America – Stanley has a personal connection to the next story he wants to tell. And he will use his AFCC fellowship to tell that story through his paintings. “I am trying to do this project painting portraits of Caribbean immigrant families living on the Outer Cape,” he explains. “I think these are really important stories to tell in this time period. And these images and faces are important to have out there and represented in art.” The AFCC award, he says, will go directly to fund materials to allow him to complete the project. “Painting is not an inexpensive habit,” he laughs. Despite the expenses, painting has had its rewards for Stanley, who lives in Wellfleet with his wife, poet Kirsten Andersen, and their two children Elle, 6, and Winn, 7. A visual arts instructor at Brown University, Stanley’s work has been exhibited throughout the country, including the Freight & Volume Gallery in New York City; Andrew Rafacz Gallery in Chicago; Frederic Snitzer Gallery in Miami; and Mark Selwyn Fine Art in Los Angeles. This year, his art is being show at the Boston Center for the Arts, the Gaa Gallery in Provincetown, and the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis. Success hasn’t happened overnight for Stanley. He has

Pops by the Sea 2018