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Glasstire is pleased to announce the 2022 Central Texas Art Writing Prize, a competitive award designed to find and highlight emerging arts writers in the greater Austin/San Antonio region. The winner of the Prize will be awarded $2,500 and their work will be published on Glasstire. In addition, they will be celebrated at an event in spring 2022.
The Glasstire Art Writing Prize is awarded to a senior undergraduate or graduate student at a Texas university. For this Central Texas open call, students from art history, journalism, studio arts, philosophy, literature, and all other departments at participating universities in the greater Austin/San Antonio area will be invited to submit articles starting today, January 18. The deadline is March 26, 2022 at 11:59 pm. Any questions about the Prize can be directed to Glasstire’s editorial staff at [email protected].
Judges for this round of the Prize include Austin and Mexico-based independent curator Leslie Moody Castro; Elyse A. Gonzales, Director of Ruby City in San Antonio; Brandon Zech, Publisher of Glasstire; Jessica Fuentes, News Editor of Glasstire; and William Sarradet, Assistant Editor of Glasstire.
How to Enter
Entrants must submit one article, with a word count between 750 and 1200 words, about a work of art that they love, and why. Only one submission per author will be considered. Please submit your article as either a Word document or PDF to [email protected]. Use the email subject line “Central Texas 2022.” Please do not include any identifying information (name, school, student classification (senior/graduate student) etc.) in the document file, as all submissions will be juried blindly. Instead, please include your bio and this identifying information in the body of your email.
Eligibility
Submission is open to all undergraduate seniors and graduate students (Masters/PhD) currently enrolled in universities and colleges in the Central Texas region — this includes schools within a 60-mile radius of either Austin or San Antonio. The deadline to submit is March 26, 2022 at 11:59 pm. Direct any questions to [email protected].
Criteria
Articles submitted for the Prize must be previously unpublished and it is expected that the winning article will be published on Glasstire.
Keep in mind that Glasstire publishes journalistic arts writing. Preference will be shown for interesting, opinionated prose that eschews academic jargon. Ask yourself if this is something you would want to read.
Past Prizes
The 2021 North Texas Art Writing Prize winner was Kevin Zander Johnson, a PhD student at UT Dallas, who wrote about Spike Lee’s landmark film Do the Right Thing. Guest jurors for the Prize included Anna Katherine Brodbeck, the Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art, and lauren woods, artist and Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Brandeis University. The 2021 North Texas Prize was generously sponsored by The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation; Laura and Walter Elcock; Marguerite Steed Hoffman; Charles Dee Mitchell, and others.
The 2021 Greater Houston Art Writing Prize winner was Justin Jannise, a Ph.D. student at the University of Houston, who wrote about TRUE NORTH 2020, the Heights Boulevard sculpture exhibition. Guest jurors for the Prize included Molly Glentzer, former Senior Writer and Critic, Arts & Culture for the Houston Chronicle, and Gabriel Martinez, artist and Director of Alabama Song. The 2021 Greater Houston Prize was generously sponsored by The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation; The Brown Foundation, Inc.; Foltz Fine Art; Cece & Mack Fowler; Melanie Gray & Mark Wawro; Poppi Georges Massey; and others.
The 2020 San Antonio Art Writing Prize winner was Christina Frasier, a doctoral student at the University of Texas at San Antonio, who wrote about Christopher Montoya’s mural of Cesar Chavez in San Antonio. Guest jurors for the Prize included Dr. Rich Aste, Director of the McNay Art Museum, and Anjali Gupta, former Director of Sala Diaz. The 2020 San Antonio Prize was generously sponsored by Caroline and William Carrington; Wendy Atwell; CAPTRUST; Cynthia Toles; Mary Elizabeth Heard; the Smothers Foundation; the 04Arts Foundation; Edward Collins; H-E-B; and Patricia Ruiz-Healy, Ph.D.
The 2019 North Texas Art Writing Prize winner was Mathieu Debic, a PhD student at UT Dallas, who wrote about David Lynch’s 1984 film Dune. Guest jurors for the Prize included Jeremy Strick, Director of the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, and Terri Thornton, Curator of Education at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The 2019 North Texas Prize was generously sponsored by Laura and Walter Elcock; Lindsey and Patrick Collins; Elisabeth and Panos Karpidas; John and Lisa Runyon; and Eleanor Williams.
The inaugural 2018 North Texas Art Writing Prize winner was Melanie Shi, a student of Philosophy at the University of North Texas in Denton, who wrote about The Color Inside, a skyspace artwork by American artist James Turrell. Guest jurors for the Prize included Augustín Arteaga, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art, and Anne Bothwell, Vice President of Arts for KERA. The 2018 North Texas Prize was generously sponsored by Lindsey and Patrick Collins; Laura and Walter Elcock; Elisabeth and Panos Karpidas; Jana and Hadley Paul; and Cindy and Howard Rachofsky.
On the importance of arts writing, then-Editor-in-Chief Christina Rees wrote for the inaugural Prize’s announcement, in her op-ed Why We Need Art Writers Now (More Than Ever):
“The Glasstire Art Writing Prize… can encourage and cultivate the voices who are interested in engaging with the vast amount of visual art that this state churns out. Artists not only deserve honest critical writing about their work. They want it. The best artists, especially, want it. And the glossy lifestyle magazines and ‘curated’ Insta-sites that only embrace the forced glamor and fluff around visual art aren’t giving them (or art fans) this, or starting any meaningful conversation around art and what it can actually do in our culture. Given our current political moment, this problem of lack of real dialogue is especially galling.”
Learn more about the Prize and about Glasstire’s work here.
About Glasstire
Glasstire is an online publication that covers visual art in Texas. Its mission is to expand the conversation about art in the state. It has been continuous operation since January 2001. It is a non-profit 501(c)(3) publication, supported in part by grants from The Houston Endowment, The Brown Foundation, Inc., the National Endowment for the Arts, the Greater Houston Community Foundation, the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance, and the Texas Commission for the Arts. Glasstire’s name is an homage to Robert Rauschenberg’s sculptures of tires cast in glass. The artworks evoke traveling great distances, at great speed, with great clarity.
Glasstire is the oldest web-only art magazine in the country.