State Arts Council Honors 20 New Jersey Artists

(February 25, 2014 - Trenton, NJ) The New Jersey State Council of the Arts held its first regular meeting of 2014 today at the South Orange Performing Arts Center which provided a fitting backdrop for the Council’s 17th Annual Artists' Roundtable featuring New Jersey artists of all disciplines who convened and exchanged information on a host of important issues.

To emphasize the importance of artists in the life of every New Jersey community, the Arts Council used the occasion to announce the winners of the 2014 Artist Fellowship Awards in the following categories: Choreography, Music Composition, Poetry and Sculpture. See the complete list of Fellowship Award recipients.

“We are extremely proud of these talented artists.” said Council Chair Elizabeth Mattson. “They represent the best of the best of our state’s diverse and dynamic artistic community.”

These highly competitive Artist Fellowship Awards are granted solely on the basis of independent peer panel assessment of the artistic quality taken from work samples submitted by individual New Jersey artists. The Fellowship Awards program is carried out in partnership with the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. More information on the program can be found on the State Arts Council's website.

According to Executive Director Nick Paleologos, “New Jersey has one of the longest and most distinguished records of support for individual artists anywhere in the country.”

In other business, the Council also released a new report on the impact of arts in healthcare in New Jersey. Supported by a grant from Johnson & Johnson, The Alliance for Arts & Health NJ—a cosponsored initiative of the Arts Council and ArtPride NJ Foundation—published the first detailed survey and examination of the value of the arts to patient care in: hospitals, rehabilitation facilities, residential programs, and community healthcare centers. The full text of the report is available here.

The New Jersey State Council on the Arts is a division of the NJ Department of State. It receives funding in direct appropriations from the State of New Jersey through a dedicated Hotel/Motel Occupancy fee and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Since 1966, its volunteer members and professional staff have worked to improve the quality of life in New Jersey by helping the arts to flourish. To learn about the Council, please visit www.artscouncil.nj.gov. For more information about what's happening in the arts statewide, visit www.jerseyarts.com