Thanks, Sandra!

Uncontained by Sue Johnson, 2011. Gouache, watercolor and pencil on paper. The Nature of Curious Objects: Sue Johnson's Paper Museum   is on exhibit at the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford through June 10.  (Photo at right: Sue Johnson working in VCCA studio) "Just occasionally, an artist comes to work with the collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum with such a sympathetic but different take that it changes everyone's way of seeing. Such an artist is Sue Johnson." - Jeremy Coote, Curator and Joint Head of Collections                                                                   Sue Johnson Website Pitt Rivers Museum Website Art reproductions from The Nature of Curious Objects

Gallery A presents Art Works , an exhibition featuring work by Myron Helfgott, sculptor and professor emeritus in the Sculpture and Extended Media Departments at Virginia Commonwealth University.   Helfgott received the Virginia Commission for the Arts Distinguished Artist award. His sculptures incorporate audio, kinetics, photography and assemblage. Art Works will be on view through March 31. Gallery A Website

Clover Archer Lyle, Detail Composite: "Nothing to Be Done", 2010 Archival Pigment, Print 17x22" Clover Archer Lyle, artist and director of Washington and Lee University's Staniar Gallery, explores how experience transforms into reality and memory. Her recent works are on display in Nothing To Be Done, a gathering of works on paper, and resin castings of work on paper. Nothing To Be Done will be on view at the Page Bond Gallery in the Shockoe Design District of Richmond, Virginia, through February 25.  Clover Archer Lyle Website Page Bond Gallery Website

Edythe Bates Old and Moores Opera House at the University of Houston present the first major revival of Daron Hagen's opera Amelia , with libretto by Gardner McFall and story by Stephen Wadsworth. It was first commissioned and premiered by Seattle Opera in 2010.  "Haunted by her father's death when he was a pilot in the Vietnam War, a woman comes to terms with the ghosts of her past, the dream of flight, and the hope of being reborn. " Moores Opera House Website Daron Hagen Website

Someone by Alice McDermott is this week's story in The New Yorker magazine. Karen Bell—who heard Alice read the story at the VCCA & Salon in New York on November 2—said it was great fun to find Someone in the magazine, "I could hear Alice's voice as I was reading."  Alice McDermott is a VCCA Fellow and Advisory Council member. The story is here Read The New Yorker interview with Alice McDermott here

"Ward Jackson's geometric abstract paintings constitute one of the great under-known bodies of work in post-War American art." Stephen Westfall "Widely known for his encyclopedic knowledge of art and artists, Ward Jackson was an active, opinionated, and informed participant in the New York art world that he so loved." Julian Jackson/Rene Lynch WARD JACKSON  1928 - 2004 A Survey of Five Decades Through February 18, 2012 David Richard Contemporary Gallery Santa Fe, NM Originally from Petersburg, Virginia, Ward Jackson settled in New York where he had his first solo exhibition at the Fleischman Gallery in 1956. Since then, his work has exhibited throughout New York and all over Europe. His signature style is described as "austere, hard edged geometric compositions on square and diamond shaped canvases." But it is also "...about pleasure, a civilized, balanced pleasure that is both analytical and sensuous." (Lilly Wei,

Cy Twombly in his Lexington, Virginia studio in 2010. Photo © Craig Pleasants The Cy Twombly Foundation has awarded VCCA a $300,000 grant, one of the largest in its history. The grant will be used to establish a Cy Twombly Fellowship that will support residencies for artists in perpetuity. Widely acknowledged to be the most important and influencial artist of the last fifty years, Cy Twombly died in Rome on July 5, 2011. He was a VCCA Fellow and served on the VCCA Advisory Council for fifteen years.  “We will always remember the generosity Cy displayed as an artist,” said VCCA Program Director Craig Pleasants, “and now his legacy will help support the work of other artists long into the future.” CLICK HERE FOR PRESS RELEASE

VCCA International Programs Coordinator Carrie Brown Photo by Marion Ettinger Though VCCA will lose a terrific international programs coordinator, we are happy to announce that Hollins University has appointed author and professor Carrie Brown as distinguished visiting professor of creative writing. She will join the Hollins faculty in August. Brown is the author of five novels and a collection of short stories. Her short fiction has appeared in such journals as One Story, Glimmer Train, The Georgia Review , and The Oxford American , and she regularly reviews fiction for major newspapers. Carrie is currently associate professor of English and Margaret Banister Writer-in-Residence at Sweet Briar College, where she teaches creative writing courses in fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction. She is also VCCA's international programs coordinator. CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

Jessica Garratt, Nancy K. Barry and Elizabeth Poliner at VCCA               On January 19, the Riverviews Artspace in Lynchburg will feature readings by three VCCA Fellows currently in residence at Mt. San Angelo.  Jessica Garratt's poems have appeared in numerous journals and her first book of poems, Fire Pond , won the Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry. She earned her PhD at the University of Missouri, and held a visiting teaching appointment at Wichita State University. While in residence at VCCA, she is working on her second book of poems .      Nancy K. Barry teaches creative nonfiction at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and the University of Iowa's Summer Writing Festival. She is a playwright and her essays have appeared in numerous publications and on Iowa Public Radio. During her VCCA residency, she is working on an essay about one of the earliest social workers in America, Lillian Wald. Elizabeth Poliner teaches in the creative writing p

PHOTO LEFT TO RIGHT: Fellows Jacqueline Jones LaMon, Porochista Khakpour & Natasha Marin in 2009 at VCCA. Jacqueline and Natasha are Cave Canem poets. Photo by Karen Bell.