Mississippi Arts Commission awards faculty grants
Four professors in the Department of Art at Mississippi State have secured 2015-2016 grants from the Mississippi Arts Commission.
Neil Callander, Marita Gootee and Gregory Martin were each awarded $4,500 visual arts fellowship grants, and Lori Neuenfeldt, gallery director, secured a $3,000 grant to support a series of contemporary art exhibits.
The grants are a portion of the $1.61 million the commission awarded in 2015-2016 and are made possible by continued funding from the Mississippi Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts.
“The arts in Mississippi are now being recognized as a key component to economic development and as a driver for creative strategies for the growth of our communities,” said Tom Pearson, executive director of MAC. “Individual artists play a vital role as really the backbone of this movement, and it is an honor for this agency to be a part of their professional growth.”
Gootee, who serves as the photography concentration coordinator for the department, will use the grant funds to continue her research in her “Talking to Ghosts” series, a body of creative research stemming from the loss of her mother. “’Talking to Ghosts’ is a series about my mother who was slowly drifting away in a world of her own. Her life was limited to a wheelchair, and she was dependent upon others for her needs. She was moving from speaking to me and telling her life stories to talking to those who are in the stories. The look and expressions are not for me but for the ghosts she remembers,” said Gootee.
The professor is currently working on a book around the photographic series and has a goal to bring the reality of dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease to the public. Gootee received a Master of Fine Arts from Indiana State University in 1985 and a Bachelor of Arts from the College of Mount Saint Joseph on the Ohio in 1981. She has been selected five times for the Mississippi Invitational at the Mississippi Museum of Art that showcases the state’s most significant contemporary artists. Her work was selected for the 2008 “Women to Watch” Invitational at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C.
Callander serves as the foundation coordinator for the department. He has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions including Bowling Green State University in Ohio; MANIFEST Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio; Goose Barnacle in Brooklyn, N.Y,; and The Kentucky School of Art in Louisville, Ky. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Indiana University and an Master of Fine Arts from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in 2006. In 2005 he received a full fellowship to be a summer resident at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. After graduate school, Callander worked as a painter for the artist Jeff Koons in his New York studio.
Martin’s work explores the relationship between human ideals and actions utilizing tropes of landscape painting, color field abstraction and dioramic natural history displays. He has exhibited at the Museum of Art and History (Lancaster, Ca.); The Carnegie Museum of Art; The Riverside Museum of Art; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Ruth Bachofner Gallery (Santa Monica, Ca.); and George Billis Gallery (Culver City, Ca.) among others. His painting “Spiral” was recently selected as Best in Show in the Louisiana Purchase Biennial.
Neuenfeldt is an art history instructor for the Mississippi State University Department of Art and serves as the gallery director for the department. Neuenfeldt graduated with a bachelor’s degree in studio art from Florida State University. After spending four years as a graphic designer in Jacksonville, Fla., she returned to FSU and received a master’s degree in art history. While in grad school Neuenfeldt worked at the FSU Museum of Fine Art in Tallahassee, Fla., where she further developed her love for museums. Following graduation she began her museum career as curatorial and registrar’s assistant at the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville. Since then she has held positions at the J. Johnson Gallery in Jacksonville Beach, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Louisiana State University Museum of Art in Baton Rouge, La.
The Mississippi Arts Commission is a state agency serving residents of the state by providing grants that support programs to enhance communities; assist artists and arts organizations; promote the arts in education and celebrate Mississippi’s cultural heritage. Established in 1968, the Mississippi Arts Commission is the funded by the Mississippi Legislature, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mississippi Endowment for the Arts at the Community Foundation of Greater Jackson and other private sources. The agency serves as an active supporter and promoter of arts in community life and in arts education.
For information from the Mississippi Arts Commission, please contact Susan Liles at 601-359-6031 or sliles@arts.ms.gov, or visit www.arts.ms.gov.
Christie McNeal | College of Architecture, Art and Design
