South Arts assembles a layered series of adjudicated panels to select the Southern Prize and State Fellowships recipients. The process consists of three panels of jurors composed of arts leaders of both regional and national stature. In the first phase, two jurors work together to identify a pool of top applicants from each state, based on artistic excellence that reflects and represents the diversity of the region. In the next round, using the same criteria, the State Fellowships jury selects one recipient per eligible state, for a group of nine State Fellows. Lastly, a third national panel, the Southern Prize jury, convenes to evaluate the body of work represented by the nine State Fellowship recipients to select the Southern Prize winner and finalist.
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Erin Jane Nelson. Erin Jane Nelson is an Atlanta-based artist and writer who received her BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art in 2011. Her work was recently included in the 2021 New Museum Triennial: Hard Water Soft Stone in New York and Making Knowing: Craft in Art 1950-2019 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. She has presented solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Chapter (NYC), and DOCUMENT (Chicago). Nelson is a 2020 recipient of the Rabkin Award for Arts Journalism and from 2018-2021 served as the Artistic Director of Burnaway, a non-profit publication dedicated to contemporary art and criticism from the American South. In 2019, she was named one of Forbes' "30 under 30" in Arts & Culture. Prior to Burnaway, she co-directed Species, an artist-run gallery with her husband Jason Benson, and served as the Curatorial Assistant in Photography and Folk & Self-taught Art at the High Museum of Art. Her work is included in numerous institutional and public collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art (USA), the Fries Museum (NL), and KADIST (USA), and has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, Artforum, ArtNet, Frieze Magazine, Cultured Magazine, T Magazine, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Chicago Tribune, and Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles..jpg)
Amy Shimshon-Santo. Dr. Amy Shimshon-Santo is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and arts administrator who believes that creativity is a powerful tool for personal and social transformation. Her interdisciplinary work connects culture, education, and ecology. Her teaching career has spanned research universities, community centers, K-12 schools, arts organizations, and spaces of incarceration. She has performed throughout the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Singapore at venues including the Kennedy Center for the Arts. Amy has edited two books amplifying community voices: Et Al: New Voices in Arts Management (Illinois Open Publishing Network), and Arts = Education (UC Press). An essayist and poet, she is the author of Even the Milky Way is Undocumented (Unsolicited Press), Endless Bowls of Sky (Placeholder Press), and the forthcoming Catastrophic Molting with FlowerSong Press (2022). Her work appears in Prairie Schooner, ArtPlace America, Zócalo Public Square, Entropy, Tilt West, Boom CA, Yes Poetry, GeoHumanities, Routledge, SAGE, UC Press, SUNY Press, and more. Recently, she participated in Everything Connected: Land, Body, Cosmos with Self Help Graphics on Google Arts and Culture, appeared on Radio Educación, and the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, the UK’s BBC Radio, the Writer’s Project Ghana, and Goethe Institut in Accra. She was recognized on the National Honor Roll for Service Learning, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry (2020), a Rainbow Reads Award in poetry (2020), Best of the Net in poetry (2018), and a Pushcart Prize in creative nonfiction (2017). Amy represented the State of California at the National Endowment for the Arts’ Education Innovation Institute, and was a founding member of CREATE CA. She was consulting producer for PBS So Cal’s episode on Arts Education. Earlier in her career, she co-founded the Brasil Brasil Cultural Center, directed the ArtsBridge Program at UCLA, and directed the Arts Management Program at Claremont Graduate University. She founded CREO Changemakers committed to generating a just society, amplifying community knowledge, and catalyzing great ideas into action..jpg)
elizabet elliott. Elliot joined Alabama Contemporary Art Center in November of 2018. Elliott has twelve years of experience in curating at both the grass-roots and institutional level. Prior to coming to Alabama Contemporary, she served 5 years at the Mobile Museum of Art, and 4 years as the founding director of the Rumor Union, a grassroots community art organization that organized site-specific installation, performance, and new media festivals, guerrilla exhibitions, outreach programs, and artist services. Elliott has also served on several boards and in community action groups, including 2 years as Vice President of the Creative Wellness Foundation. She received her BFA with First Class Honors from Massey University in Wellington, New Zealand in 2009, and her MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Goddard College in Port Townsend, WA in 2014, focusing on Social/Civic practice. She enjoys action movies and dirty jokes..jpg)
Floyd Hall. Floyd Hall is a media strategist, engineer, cultural producer, writer, and documentarian from Atlanta, Georgia. As an artist and curator, his work often relates to the intersection of culture, media, and technology as platforms to construct narratives of place..jpg)
Sarah Workneh. Sarah Workneh has worked in alternative education spaces for artists for over 20 years. She has served as Co-Director of the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture since 2010. Primarily focused on the educational program, and off-season programming with Alumni, Sarah leads all efforts to support artists in the expansion of their practices. Understanding the holistic nature of the program, Sarah oversees the admissions process, facilities usage, and expansion under Skowhegan’s Master Plan, as well as the educational daily life on campus. Sarah has lectured widely as a Visiting Artist/Critic at schools & programs around the US and has served as an advisor to both academic and residency programs, particularly around issues of equity. Sarah has published a variety of texts -- most recently an essay on participatory education and a catalog essay on radical education published by the New Museum. She serves on the boards of Colby College Museum of Art, the Black Lunch Table, RAIR in Philadelphia, Buxton School in Williamstown, MA and is a member of the Lake Wesserunsett Association Conservation Committee in Maine. In 2020, she partnered with Linda Goode Bryant & Project Eats to convert one of the organization's farms into a food pantry in Brownsville, NYC. Sarah has a BA in Linguistics & Russian and pursued graduate work focused on Social Movement Theory, Political Economy, & Liberation Theology.
Anne Collins Smith. Anne Collins Smith has been the Curator of Collections at the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art since 2003. She is a cultural curator, art historian, and cultural worker in the literary, visual, and performing arts. Smith received a bachelor’s of art degree in English and art from Spelman College and a master’s of art degree in visual arts administration from New York University. Smith was a Romare Bearden Fellow at the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow at the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College where she curated The Space Between: Artists Engaging Race and Syncretism (2003).
Garth Johnson. Garth Johnson is the Paul Phillips and Sharon Sullivan Curator of Ceramics at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York. Johnson is a self-described craft activist who explores craft’s influence and relevance in the 21st century. His research interests range from 1960s and 70s artist-led movements in the field of ceramics to the intersection of clay, video, and performance. His recent exhibitions at the Everson include The Floating Bridge: Postmodern and Contemporary Japanese Ceramics, Renegades & Reformers: American Art Pottery, and Earth Piece: Conceptual and Performative Works in Clay. His writing has been published nationally and internationally, with recent contribution to the books Repositioning Paolo Soleri: The City is Nature and Victor Cicansky: The Gardener’s Universe. 
Rosie Gordon Wallace | Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator - Miami, FL. Rosie Gordon-Wallace is a recognized curator, arts advocate, community leader, and pioneer in advancing contemporary diaspora art. She founded the Diaspora Vibe Culture Arts Incubator (DVCAI) to serve as a local and global laboratory dedicated to promoting, nurturing, and cultivating the vision and diverse talents of emerging artists from the Caribbean Diaspora, artists of color, and immigrant artists. Twenty-five years later, DVCAI is recognized as a global resource and one of the region’s leading platforms dedicated to providing diaspora artists with a venue to explore and experiment with new forms and themes that challenge traditional definitions of the Caribbean and Latin American art. DVCAI artists have traveled and engaged in conversations with artists in France, Barbados, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Antigua, Suriname, and Guadeloupe. In addition to her service on several prominent boards, she is an active member of the PAMM Fund for African American Art and serves on The Cultural Affairs Council for Miami Dade County and Florida’s Department of Cultural Affairs panels. Her awards include The African Heritage Cultural Arts Center Third Annual Calabash Amadlozi Visual Arts Award, International Businesswoman of the Year, One of South Florida’s 50 Most Powerful Black Professionals. Her most recent curation of Inter | Sectionality: Diaspora Art from The Creole which closed at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Art + Culture in March January 2021, opens in the Miami Design District on February 5th, 2021, and will run through May 31, 2021.
Jerushia Graham | Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking - Atlanta, GA. Jerushia Graham is the Museum Coordinator for the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking and a working artist. The Atlanta-based artist exhibits both nationally and internationally. In addition to her curatorial efforts at the Paper Museum, she is the VP of Exhibitions/Curatorial for the North American Hand Papermakers. Graham has also been a guest curator for the Zora Neale Hurston Museum in Eatonville, FL and The Hudgens Center for Art and Learning in Duluth, GA. She was previously the Education Director for Atlanta Printmakers Studio as well as a book arts/papermaking/print professor for Kennesaw State University, as well as a foundations professor for the University of West Georgia and the Art Institute of Atlanta-Decatur. Prior to her work in Georgia she served as the Museum Director and Education Coordinator for Spiral Q, an arts and social justice non-profit. In 2019, she was nominated in the category of Artistic Excellence for the inaugural Hammonds House Honors. Graham was one of five artists selected by the GA Committee for the National Museum of Women in the Arts exhibit at MOCA GA, Paper Routes: Women To Watch 2020. Several of her papercuts recently traveled the state of Georgia in an exhibition sponsored by the Georgia Museum of Art and Lyndon House Museum, Highlighting Contemporary Art in Georgia: Cut and Paste. She earned an MFA in Book Arts/Printmaking from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, and BFA degrees in Fabric Design and Printmaking from the University of Georgia in Athens. Graham is interested in creating spaces for socially-minded introspection and empathy through her artwork, workshops, and curatorial projects. 
Jackie Clay | Coleman Center for the Arts - York, AL. Jackie Clay is the executive director at the Coleman Center for the Arts, a contemporary arts organization that produces socially engaged public art projects in the Alabama Black Belt region. In addition to her work in Sumter County, she has organized exhibitions at the ICA LA, et al gallery (San Francisco), and the Alabama Contemporary Art Center (Mobile). She has contributed to catalogs including Prospect 4, black is a color, and the Greenwood Art Project. She hosts Monograph, a documentary series produced by Alabama Public Television that focuses on creative practice both inside and outside the traditional arts framework.
Patsy Cox | California State University Northridge - Northridge, CA. Patsy Cox is Professor of Visual Art and Chair of Ceramics at California State University Northridge. She is an artist, educator and arts advocate. She is a former president of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) and a Fellow of the Council. She is currently serving on the board of the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) in Pomona, California. She has participated in the Annenberg Alchemy and Alchemy+ programs for nonprofit excellence, was a Getty Scholar for the Linking Service Learning and the Visual Arts Program and has coordinated courses for the CSU Summer Arts Program. She was the curator for the 74th Scripps Annual, Stories Without Borders: Personal Narratives in Clay. Cox is an installation-based artist who has exhibited and lectured nationally and internationally, most recently as a resident artist with Dunhuang Creative Center in Lanzhou, China culminating with the permanent collection installation piece, Huang He. She holds an MFA from the University of Delaware and BFA from Missouri University and lives and maintains a productive studio near downtown Los Angeles.
Sarah Higgins | Art Papers - Atlanta, GA. Sarah Higgins is Editor + Artistic Director of Art Papers. Previously, she was curator at the Zuckerman Museum of Art at Kennesaw State University (2015-2018) where she produced exhibitions and publications including Tomashi Jackson: Interstate Love Song, Gut Feelings, and A View Beyond the Trees. She has curated over 40 exhibitions for institutions such as the Hessel Museum of Art, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, and Atlantic Center for the Arts.
Carlton Turner | Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture) - Utica, MS. Carlton Turner is an artist, agriculturalist, arts advocate, policy shaper, lecturer, consultant, and facilitator. Carlton is the founder of the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production (Sipp Culture). Sipp Culture uses arts and agriculture to support rural community, cultural, and economic development in his hometown of Utica, Mississippi where he lives with his wife Brandi and three children.
Marcela Guerrero | Whitney Museum of American Art - New York, NY. Marcela Guerrero is Assistant Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Recently, she was part of the curatorial team that organized Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925-1945. In summer 2018, Guerrero curated the exhibition Pacha, Llaqta, Wasichay: Indigenous Space, Modern Architecture, New Art.
Karen Patterson | The Fabric Workshop and Museum - Philadelphia, PA. Karen Patterson joined the Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) as their inaugural curator in July 2019. Current projects include Jonathan Lyndon Chase: Big Wash; Elisabeth Kley: Minutes of Sand; His History of Art: Jayson Musson. Prior to this appointment she was the Senior Curator at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center (JMKAC), Patterson has curated over fifty exhibitions, including major exhibitions such as Ray Yoshida’s Museum of Extraordinary Values, Ebony G.Patterson: Dead Treez, several critically-reviewed site specific installations such as Joy Feasley and Paul Swenbeck: Out, Out, Phosphene Candle, Things are What We Encounter: Dr.Charles Smith + Heather Hart. Patterson completed her BA in folklore studies at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada, and her Masters of Art Administration at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Publications include: Samara Golden: Upstairs At Steve's; Lenore Tawney: Mirror of the Universe (2019), Eugene Von Bruenchenhein: Mythologies (2017), Lee Godie: Self-Portraits (2015), Ray Yoshida’s Museum of Extraordinary Values (2013).
Seph Rodney | Hyperallergic - New York, NY. Seph Rodney, PhD was born in Jamaica, and came of age in the Bronx, New York. He is the opinions editor and managing editor for the Sunday edition for Hyperallergic, and writes on visual art and related issues. He has also written for The New York Times, CNN Op-ed pages, American Craft Magazine and NBC Universal, and penned catalog essays for Joyce J. Scott, Teresita Fernandez, and Meleko Mokgosi. He can be heard weekly on the podcast “The American Age”. His book, The Personalization of the Museum Visit, was published by Routledge in May of 2019. In 2020 he won the Rabkin Arts Journalism Prize.