James Lavadour Awarded a Hallie Ford Fellowship by The Ford Family Foundation

Congratulations to PDX CONTEMPORARY ART represented artist James Lavadour who was named a Hallie Ford Fellow alongside Corey Arnold, Niraja Cheryl Lorenz, Jess Perlitz, and Sharita Towne! Thank you to The Ford Family Foundation for their generous support of Oregon artist and our art ecology through important gifts like the Hallie Ford Fellowship.

Press Release:

The Ford Family Foundation Names Five Oregon Visual Artists as Hallie Ford Fellows in the Visual Arts for 2019

Artists from Eugene, Pendleton and Portland
acknowledged for their talent and their creative practices

Roseburg, Oregon: The Ford Family Foundation today named its 2019 Hallie Ford Fellows in the Visual Arts, recognizing five Oregon visual artists for demonstrated excellence of their work and potential for significant advancement in their practices of art.

A jury of five arts professionals from within and outside of Oregon selected Niraja Lorenz of Eugene, James Lavadour of Pendleton, and Corey Arnold, Jess Perlitz and Sharita Towne of Portland from an exceptionally diverse pool of nearly 190 applicants. They each will receive a $25,000 unrestricted award and will join 35 of their peers selected over the last nine years as Hallie Ford Fellows.

"Their talent cuts across the spectrum of disciplines," said Anne Kubisch, president of the Foundation. “They represent contemporary forms of expressions that convey ideas and stories that encourage viewers to think about our world in a different way.”

The jurists individually reviewed and then collectively debated the applicants. They determined that each awardee is at a pivotal moment of career transition and an infusion of resources now may help to catalyze each artist’s practice in transformative ways. Serving on the panel were: Lisa Dent, Artistic Director of Converge 45 (New York, N.Y.); Emily Liebert, Curator of Contemporary Art, Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, Ohio); Mack McFarland, Artist, Director of the Center for Contemporary Art and Culture, Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland, Oregon); Helen Molesworth, Independent Curator and former Chief Curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) (Los Angeles, Calif.); and Christopher Rauschenberg, Artist, President of Blue Sky Gallery, and President of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation (Portland, Oregon).

The 2019 recipients were selected based on the following criteria:

• Quality of their work: artistic excellence/exemplary talent and depth of sophisticated exploration evidenced in past work,
• Evolution of their work: whether the individual is poised at a pivotal point in his or her practice and would benefit from a Fellowship at this time of career, and
• Effect of the Fellowship on their work: how the Fellowship goals are consistent with the artist's goals, potential for future accomplishment and capacity both to improve individual work and contribute significantly to Oregon's visual arts ecology.