Woody English Chair Distinguished Artist and Writers Chair:

Judy Pfaff

 

Pfaff creates installations, sculptures, and drawings that explore the possibilities of line in space using materials that range from tree roots to steel, plastics, fiberglass, and plaster. Through a distinguished career that stretches back to the 1970s, she has exhibited internationally and received many prestigious awards. Pfaff is a MacArthur, NEA and Guggenheim Fellow whose installation pieces, sculptures, drawings and prints have been exhibited in some of the most prestigious museums and galleries in the world.

Pfaff's art is featured in such publications as After the Revolution: Women Who Transformed Contemporary Art and Judy Pfaff, a monograph by critic and art historian Irving Sandler. Her work is in collections including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Brooklyn Museum, the Detroit Institute of Art, the High Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.  Pfaff is currently Professor of Art and Co-Chair of the Art Department, Bard College.

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The Presidents Chair: Peter Campion

Peter Campion is the author of two books of poems, Other People (2005) and The Lions (2009.) His work appears regularly in such venues as The Boston Globe, The Kenyon Review, The New Republic, The New York Times, Poetry, Slate, and Threepenny Review. He is the recipient of a Puschart Prize, the Larry Levis Reading Prize, the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation.  He teaches in the M.F.A. Program at the University of Minnesota.

 

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ELLA JACKSON CHAIR HONORS: Deborah Dancy

 

Deborah Dancy is on the faculty at the University of Connecticut. She has received numerous awards and honors including: Guggenheim Fellowship, Connecticut Commission of the Arts Artist Grant, New England Foundation for the Arts/NEA Individual Artist Grant, Nexus Press Artist Book Project Award, Visual Studies Artist Book Project Residency Grant, The American Antiquarian Society’s William Randolph Hearst Fellowship, and a Women’s Studio Workshop Residency Grant. Her work has been exhibited at: Purdue University, The Housatonic Museum, The College of Saint Rose, The University of Rhode Island, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, The Spencer Museum, Mobius, The Mead Art Museum and The DeCordova Museum. Her work is included in the permanent collections of: The Boston Museum of Fine, The Birmingham Museum of Art, The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Montgomery Museum of Art, The Spencer Museum of Art, The Hunter Museum of Art, Vanderbilt University, Grinnell College, Oberlin College Museum of Art, Davidson Art Center, The Detroit Museum of Art, General Electric Company, Chemical Bank, and the United States Embassy in Cameroon.  She is represented by, Sears-Peyton Gallery, New York, G.R.N’Namdi Gallery, Chicago and Charles Young Fine Prints and Drawings, Connecticut.

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THE MARY LOU FRIEDMAN CHAIR HONORS: Jeff Shapiro

Jeff Shapiro is known for workshops that encourage discourse about technique, aesthetics, and philosophy. He has also become a story teller and relates poignant anecdotes from his 9 years spent in Japan. His work has been extensively exhibited both nationally and internationally and is in many collections including The Mint Museum, The Brooklyn Museum of Art and the American Museum of Ceramic Art. His writings have been published in numerous magazines and books. He's taught workshops in across the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Italy and has just returned from a successful workshop in Pondicherry, India at the Golden Bridge Pottery.

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THE JOYCE JOHNSON CHAIR HONORS: David Boyajian

David Boyajian was born and raised in Connecticut. After receiving his BFA in 1980 from Alfred University, he attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and in 1982 completed his MFA at the Maryland Institute, Rinehart School of Sculpture. Since 1986 he has been teaching metal sculpture, introduction to foundry, stone and wood carving at the Silvermine School of Art in New Canaan, CT. David teaches drawing and sculpture at Western Ct. state University and Norwalk community college and teaches metal sculpture classes from his studio in CT.

 

 

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