The Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize

Call for Entries
Artscape Presents The Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize

Made possible through the support of the William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund of the Baltimore Community Foundation, the Amy Newhall/Brightside Foundation, the France-Merrick Foundation, the Joseph and Harvey Meyerhoff Family Charitable Funds, Rosemore, Inc. and The Rouse Company Foundation.

Application deadline – December 7, 2007

Artscape, the Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA), The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) and the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) are proud to announce the third edition of the Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize. The prize will award a $25,000 fellowship to a visual artist or visual artist collaborators working in the Baltimore region. The prize is in conjunction with the annual Artscape juried exhibition. Approximately six finalists will be selected for the final review for the prize. Their work will be shown in the Thalheimer Gallery of The Baltimore Museum of Art. Additionally, an exhibition of the semi-finalists will be shown in the Decker and Meyerhoff galleries of the Maryland Institute College of Art during the Artscape weekend.

The fellowship winner will be selected from The Baltimore Museum of Art exhibition after review of the installed art and an interview with each finalist by the jurors. The remaining finalists not selected for the fellowship will each receive a $1,500 honorarium.

The Artscape prize is named in honor of Janet and Walter Sondheim who have been instrumental in creating the Baltimore City that exists today. Walter Sondheim, Jr. had been one of Baltimore’s most important civic leaders for over 50 years. His accomplishments included oversight of the desegregation of the Baltimore City Public Schools in 1954 when he was president of the Board of School Commissioners of Baltimore City. Later, he was deeply involved in the development of Charles Center and the Inner Harbor. He continued to be active in civic and educational activities in the city and state and served as the senior advisor to the Greater Baltimore Committee until his death in February 2007.

Janet Sondheim danced with the pioneering Denishawn Dancers, a legendary dance troupe founded by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn. Later, she turned to teaching where she spent 15 years at the Children’s Guild working with severely emotionally disturbed children. After retirement, she was a volunteer tutor at Highlandtown Elementary School. She married Walter in 1934, and they were together until her death in 1992.

Jurors
Jurors will be announced by November 16, 2007.

Review Process
The selection process will occur in three phases.
1st Review –Jurors will review applicants’ submissions independent of each other. They will complete score sheets that will be tabulated to select approximately 40 semi-finalists. Submissions will consist of five (5) digital images of work or up to ten (10) minutes of time based work and a resume.

2nd Review – Semi-finalists will be asked to submit an expanded submission including up to 30 images and a description of how they will use the fellowship if they are selected. The review process will be the same as phase one. Approximately six finalists will be selected for the exhibition and final review. Each finalist will meet with a BMA curator and BOPA staff person to determine installation requirements. Works by the remaining semi-finalists will be selected for a separate exhibition at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

Final Review – The finalists will install work in the Thalheimer Gallery of The Baltimore Museum of Art. On Saturday, July 12, 2008 the jurors will meet with each artist for 20-30 minutes in their exhibition space for a final interview. After all of the interviews the jurors will meet and decide the fellowship award winner. The award will be announced later that evening at the award reception.

Application Materials
Application should include:
- A CD-Rom containing 5 jpeg images of work. Image files on the CD should be titled exactly as follows: last name first, first name, and number corresponding to the image description sheet. Each image should be sized at 72 dpi at approximately 12” x 16” or about 700 kb per image.

- Artists submitting time based works may submit up to 10 minutes of work on a DVD. The 10 minutes may include excerpts from up to 5 works as long as the combined time totals no more than 10 minutes. If you wish to submit still and time based works, please include the still images as jpegs. For every still image subtract 2 minutes from the allowed 10 minute time based total.

- A hard copy of a one page resume.

- A signed and filled out application and image description form.

- A $25 application fee. Check should be made out to BOPA.

- No application materials will be returned.

Guidelines
1. Artists living in Maryland; Washington, DC; Delaware; Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties and the city of Alexandria in Virginia; and Adams, Chester, Franklin, Lancaster and York counties in Pennsylvania are eligible to submit for this exhibition.
2. Artists may not be full-time students at the time of the exhibition and during the granting period. Students who will have graduated by the time of the exhibition and granting period may apply.
3. Artists must reside in one of the geographic areas listed above during time of application and during the entire granting period.
4. Artists who work in collaboration may apply as a group. Each artist’s name and contact information should be listed on the application form. A one page resume for the collaborative group and a single set of support materials should be submitted.
5. Semi-finalists will be required to submit a description of how they will use the fellowship if they are selected.
6. The grant will be paid in monthly installments. $5,200 will be paid for the first month and $1,800 will be paid for each of the following 11 months. If artist collaborators are selected the above payments will be equally divided between the collaborating artists.
7. Winners of the Sondheim Prize will be responsible for paying all applicable taxes.
8. Winners of the Sondheim Prize will be required to file a final report by June 30, 2008, before the final payment.
9. Work submitted for this exhibition will also be made available to curators of the Artscape City-County Exhibitions. Artists from beyond the geographical area and full-time students may send work for review for these exhibitions. Please visit www.artscape.org for a listing of galleries and the City-County application.
10. Artscape, the BMA, BOPA and MICA reserve the right to reproduce images of selected artists’ work for printed or internet publicity, catalogue or marketing purposes.
11. Submissions must be postmarked or hand delivered by 5pm, December 7, 2007. No late submissions will be accepted
12. The decisions of the jurors are final. Jurors may change without notification.
13. Finalists will be required to meet with a BMA curator and BOPA staff to finalize their installation needs.
14. Finalists may be required to make public presentations at the BMA at some time during the duration of the exhibition.
15. Previous winners of the Sondheim Prize are not eligible to apply. Previous finalists and semi-finalists may apply.

Submission Deadline
December 7, 2007, postmarked or hand delivered by 5pm to:
Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize
Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts
7 East Redwood Street, Suite 500
Baltimore, MD 21202
No email submissions will be accepted

Timeline
Application deadline, December 7, 2007
Announcement of semi-finalists, February 8, 2008
Announcement of finalists, April 11, 2008
Finalist interviews, July 12, 2008
Award announcement, 7pm, July 12, 2008
BMA exhibition duration, June 21 through August 2, 2008
MICA exhibition duration, July 17 through August 2, 2008
Artscape, July 18-20, 2008
For more information contact: Gary Kachadourian at 410-752-8632 or gkachadourian@promotionandarts.com