Governor, First Lady To Receive UA Art Patron Award

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman and First Lady Lori Seigelman will attend The University of Alabama’s Society for the Fine Arts annual awards gala Feb. 8 where they will be honored for their patronage of the arts. The gala will be held at 6:30 p.m. at NorthRiver Yacht Club in Tuscaloosa.

UA President Andrew Sorensen will present the SFA’s Patrons of the Arts Award to the Siegelmans for their support of the arts. They will be honored along with five Alabama artists and the Alabama exhibition of painters, Artists of Alabama 2000.

The ceremony marks the 26th anniversary of the Society of Fine Arts and the 18th consecutive year that the statewide arts group, part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, has recognized Alabamians and UA alumni who have made an impact on the creative and performing arts in Alabama.

Pianist Anthony Pattin, writer Honerée Jeffers, dancer Daryl Foster, actor Michael Collins, and sculptor and painter Ed McGowin will receive the SFA’s Artists of the Millennium Awards. The awards recognize individuals who promise to make a significant contribution to their art form in the coming years.

Thirteen artists and the N.A.L.L. Art Association, headed by artist and Alabama native Nall Hollis, will receive the SFA’s Image Award for their work with Artists of Alabama 2000, an exhibition of Alabama art.

Patron of the Arts Award

The Siegelmans will be honored for their stewardship of the arts. First Lady Lori Siegelman will be recognized for her support of art education and for founding the Children’s Arts Festival. More than 2,000 Alabama sixth-grade students attended the inaugural festival last March at the Governor’s Mansion to participate in experiences designed to inspire the student’s imaginations and to introduce them to the joys of artistic expression. The festival will take place again this year in March and will include a program of grants to teachers so they can travel to the festival and learn ways to make the arts part of their curriculums.

Gov. Siegelman will be recognized for his support of art education, individual artists, and arts program, including state grants provided under the auspices of the Alabama State Council of the Arts and his support for arts facilities such as the Alabama School of Fine Arts and the Booker T. Washington Arts Magnet School in Montgomery.

Artists for the New Millennium Awards

A featured pianist on National Public Radio, Dr. Anthony Pattin has appeared often on Alabama Public Television’s Pianist at Work. A critically acclaimed orchestral soloist and recitalist, he has performed concerts throughout the United States and Central America. Pattin recently debuted at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall and performed for the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series in Chicago. He has won numerous honors and awards, including the coveted first place award in the distinguished International Bartok-Kabelesky Competition.

Pattin, a professor at the University of Montevallo, earned his bachelor’s degree in music at the University of Toledo, his master’s degree in music at the University of Michigan and his doctoral degree at The University of Alabama.

Pattin is also a composer and arranger of gospel music and served on the music staff of several churches including the historical Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.

Pattin will perform the Opening Concert, April 5, for the 26th DeBose National Piano Competition-Festival: Artistry and Symposia 2001 at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La.

Writer Honerée Jeffers has won awards from the Rona Jaffe Foundation for Women Studies, the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund for Women, and was a runner-up for the Paumanuk Award from the Visiting Writers Series of SUNY-Farmindale, among others.

Her poems have appeared in collections including Brilliant Corners: A Journal of Jazz and Literature, Callaloo, Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, Massachusetts Review, Obsidian III and Poet Lore.

Jeffers is the author of the Gospel of Barbecue, which was selected for the 1999 Stan and Tom Wick Poetry Prize for a First Book from Kent State University. Jeffers now resides in Talladega.

Dancer, and Tuscaloosa native, Daryl Foster has studied with the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, at the Harvard University Summer Dance program, and the American Dance Festival and American Ballet Theatre in New York City. He was accepted with the Second Company of the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company before joining the faculty of the American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Intensive at The University of Alabama for its 2000 summer workshop. Foster, who received his bachelor’s degree in dance from The University of Alabama in 2000, has also taught dance and choreographed for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and performed in summer stock musical theatre. Foster now lives in New York City.

Actor Michael Collins has appeared in over 30 national commercials, most notably for Pert Plus Shampoo and has recorded hundreds of voice-overs for many products. He has also appeared as host of television network VH1’s Show of Ages.

Collins received his bachelor’s degree in theater at The University of Alabama in 1991. He has acted at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery, Theater de le Juene Lune in Minneapolis, the Yale Repertory Theater in Boston, and the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego.

Artist Ed McGowin, a native of Hattiesburg, Miss., is known for his use of directness and simplicity in his art, a strong graphic sense and versatile handling of material, and storytelling techniques in his painting and sculptures.

McGowin has guest lectured at the Washington Museum of Modern Art, Washington D.C.; the American Cultural Center, Paris, France; and he has received recognition from the Cassandra Foundation. He has won numerous awards and grants including First Prize from the Alabama Art Association. McGowin’s works have published in Who’s Who in American Art, Plastics as an Art Form, and Art America.

His solo exhibits have appeared in the Martha Jackson Gallery, New York; the Washington Room, Washington D.C.; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Md.; and in the Iolas Gallery, New York. McGowin created site-specific sculptures for the General Services Administration, Jackson, Miss.; the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York; and the Veterans Administration of Indianapolis, Ind., among others.

From 1970 to 1972, McGowin adopted 12 legal names, most notably Thorton Mofestus Dosset. The works under this name addressed race relations in the South.

McGowin earned his bachelor’s degree in art at the University of Southern Mississippi and his master’s degree at The University of Alabama. He is a professor of art at State University of New York in Old Westbury, N.Y.

Society for the Fine Arts Image Award

Artists of Alabama 2000, sponsored by the N.A.L.L. Arts Association, included 13 Alabama artists and was exhibited throughout Alabama and in Europe. The artists that participated in Alabama 2000 are photographers Chip Cooper, William Christenberry, Kathryn Tucker Windham, and Flemming Tyler Wilson; sculptors Frank Fleming, Charlie Lucas, and Clifton Pearson; painters Moze T., Jimmy Lee Sudduth, and Charlie Lucas; engravers Steve Skidmore and Bill Nance; and quilter Yvonne Wells. The artists and the N.A.L.L. Art Association will receive the SFA’s Image Award for representing Alabama’s art and culture within and without the state’s border.

As part of its recognition of the Artists of Alabama Art 2000, the Society for the Fine Arts will recognize The Flora-Bama Band; The Birmingham Sunlights, an acapella gospel group, Cornelius Carter, associate professor of dance at The University of Alabama, and dancer Wes Chapman, director of The Alabama Ballet, for their contribution and involvement in Artists of Alabama Art 2000.

For more information about the ceremony, contact Bobbie Rafferty, coordinator of college advancement in the College of Arts and Sciences, at 205/348-8537.