The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA) has announced that the three finalists for the 19th annual Janet & Walter Sondheim Art Prize are weaver Hellen Ascoli; mixed-media artist Amy Boone-McCreesh; and ceramicist Sam Mack.
Awarded by BOPA in partnership with the Walters Art Museum and supported by the Maryland State Arts Council, the Sondheim prize is one of the most prestigious arts honors in Maryland. The winner will be announced at the museum in August.
The top prize is a monetary award of $30,000, and all three finalists will exhibit their work in the Sondheim Finalists’ Exhibition at the Walters from July 17 to September 8, 2024. In addition, each finalist will receive a $2,500 M&T Bank Finalist Award, which is designed in part to assist them in preparing for the exhibition.
The finalists were selected from a larger group of applicants by a jury that consists of artist, scholar and poet Noel W. Anderson; curator, educator and historian Connie H. Choi; and curator, historian and lecturer Aaron Levi Garvey.
On July 27, the jurors will meet with each artist for up to 45 minutes for a final interview. After the interviews, the jurors will meet and select the winner of the top prize as well as a studio residency at the Bromo Seltzer Art Tower in Baltimore. The winners will be announced on Aug. 22 at 6 p.m. at an award ceremony and reception at the museum.
According to BOPA, here are brief biographies of the three finalists:
Hellen Ascoli is a Guatemalan weaver who is based in Baltimore and “collaborates” with the back-strap loom to create works that embody the open language of weaving through sensation, memory, oral traditions and poetry. In 2021, she had her first institutional solo exhibition titled “CIEN TIERRAS” at the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati, a show that traveled in 2023 to La Nueva Fábrica in Antigua, Guatemala. Currently, Ascoli teaches at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) while also developing a practice in Language Justice.
Amy Boone-McCreesh was born on Loring Air Force Base in Maine and received her BFA degree from Pennsylvania College of Art and Design and her MFA degree from Towson University. She has been awarded a two-year Hamiltonian Artist Fellowship in Washington, D.C. and two Individual Artist Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC), and was a 2023 Joan Mitchell Fellowship Nominee. Boone-McCreesh’s work has been included in exhibitions across the country, as well as supported by many institutional exhibitions. Her large-scale works have been acquired by the Department of State in the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico (Art in Embassies, 2013), Facebook (2019), and Capital One (2018). Her work is featured in “New American Paintings” (issues 106 and 118) and “Handmade Life,” published by Thames and Hudson (2016). Based in Baltimore for the last 15 years, she is currently a visiting faculty member at Dickinson College.
Sam Mack lives and works in Baltimore. They received their MFA degree in Studio Art in 2019 from the School of Art at the University of Arkansas. Their work uses contemporary and historic ceramic vessels as primary materials. Mack has been an artist in residence at Ox Bow School of Art and Artist Residency and SUNY-New Paltz, and has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at the JEAE International Arts Center in Jingdezhen, China; Aichi Ceramics Museum in Seto City, Japan; the Clay Studio in Philadelphia; YNG SPC (online); Vernon Filley Art Museum in Pratt, Kansas. Mack is presently represented by Galleri Urbane in Dallas, Texas.
More information about the Sondheim prize and the finalists is available by visiting promotionandarts.org and following BOPA on social media (@promoandarts.)
