William Meredith Foundation & Center for the Arts

Future Projects & Programs

Arts Programs (2009-2012)
   
The William Meredith Center for the Arts fosters an appreciation of the work of local, regional and international artists and provides opportunities for them to present their work and share their talent with the community. It promotes a variety of programs in the arts from art exhibitions, book publications, poetry readings and concerts to continue the legacy of the great American poet, teacher and war hero, William Meredith who served as America's Poet Laureate from 1979-1980.   
       
The invited artists at the Meredith Center will share their work through art exhibitions, readings, publications and academic seminars. The center will serve as a retreat where artists can create new works in the same spirit of peace, equality, and serious endeavor that characterized William's life and work at Riverrun.

Several new initiatives are in development including a proposal to the Disabled American Veterans.

PROGRAM ONE

Returning to Ithaca: Reflections of War and Military Service

A writer's workshop for America's veterans. This is a pilot program we hope to use as a model for other such workshops in Connecticut and around the country. Returning veterans, particularly those suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome will meet weekly. It is to be a team taught program with professional poets and veterans helping to explore and verbalize the experience of war and service in the military. The program will be limited to a maximum of twelve participants who will be offered scholarships for full tuition. Invited guest speakers will include experts in PTSD and a master class by renowned novelist, Tim O'Brien, perhaps the premiere American chronicler of the War in Viet Nam. An anthology of works produced will be published and launched at a reading by authors wishing to share their work in a public forum.

It is difficult to foretell exactly what the impact of this pilot program will be. One hopes it will be like the proverbial pebble dropped into the center of a pond which sends out ripples across the broad surface of a lake. Certainly, the initial 12 participants will benefit directly, but if the program is duplicated, which we certainly hope, this workshop can be replicated across the country where there is interest and need. Certainly, the anthology will raise awareness of the difficulties or service men and women face returning to civilian life. A final report and evaluation of the program will be invaluable to teachers and institutions wishing to begin their own program.

Initially, participants in the workshop will be drawn from the local community. Military life is integral to the Groton/ New London, given the submarine base, Electric Boat, and the Coast Guard Academy. It is an ideal community from which to draw participants and support from local institutions.

We will begin with student evaluations of the workshop once the program has finished. We will also begin a reading in the community to the numerous colleges such as Three Rivers, Connecticut College, as well as arts venues such as the Norwich Arts Council, the Hygenic Gallery, the Mystic Arts Association where surveys' will be distributed. A final report with recommendations will be compiled by the instructors and the therapist who will be advising us.

This will be a  new initiative, though it has been inspired by previous support from the DAV. In 2004, we received a $5,000 grant from Dominion Resources which was matched by the DAV to produce original art from the master painter, Stoimen Stoilov to illustrate William Meredith's poem memorializing the tragic loss of the SS Thresher. The work was presented at the Submarine Museum in Groton and copies were presented to each of the 158 families of those lost at sea.

 

Some Biographical Information on William Meredith

After service as a Navy pilot in WWII and Korea, William Meredith returned to his native Connecticut to begin his extraordinary career. He settled on a farm in Uncasville to share his talents as teacher, poet, and arborist. For decades, as the rare trees he nurtured on the banks of the Thames grew to beautiful maturity, so did his many fine students at Connecticut College. He continued his mastery of the art form of poetry and in 1979 was designated Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress, a position now (and retroactively) legislated as United States Poet Laureate.
                       
The foundation believes we need such models of courage and grace to sustain us. In one poem from a series based on the life of an imaginary painter named Hazard, William  describes Hazard as being, "in charge of morale in a morbid time." This is William Meredith's legacy to us, a legacy we treasure.

Poetry Readings in the Schools and Senior Centers

A series of poetry readings by young poets featuring their own work as well as the poetry of William Meredith. Invited poets (fine, emerging poets from Connecticut including such artists as Daniel Gula, Ravi Shankar, and Melanie Greenhouse who knew Mr. Meredith before his death and whose work he appreciated) will give workshops where appropriate, or otherwise simply read to residents at nursing homes such as Beechwood in New London where the film recounting Mr. Meredith's life, MARATHON was recently presented. The programs will feature personal memoirs of Mr. Meredith and will draw from his collection of prose essays on poetry entitled, POEMS ARE HARD TO READ.

Several residents at Beechwood Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in New London, Conn., were dubbed movie stars for their roles in Marathon, a documentary film about local poet and Pulitzer Prize winner William Meredith who died in 2007.

PROGRAM THREE

Echos Revisited

Revival of the concert tour, ECHOES which traveled the US and Europe in 2004 featured new compositions by a stellar group of American and international composers includingChristopher Lyndon-Gee, David Leisner, Scott Lindroth, Joanne Metcalf, Paul Moravec and Yehudi Wyner. Each of the composers has testified to the compelling quality of Mereedith's poems as a basis for musical setting, and all have participated in this project with great enthusiasm.

Soprano Jana Baty, and pianist Alison D'Amato will perform. Richard Harteis will host the evening which will include video presentations of William Meredith reading his own work. Initial venues include:

The Library of Congress
Connecticut College
Yale University
Duke University
University of California at San Diego
The American University (Katzen Center)   

Performing Artists

JANNA BATY, SOPRANO, has already received widespread international recognition for her talent. Ms. Baty made her debut in 1998 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (England), singing the soprano solo in the UK premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 3. She has won the XXI Concurso Internacional de Ejecucióón Musical "Dr. Luis Sigall" (Chile), South America's largest and most prestigious competition.

ALISON D'AMATO, PIANO, has built a strong reputation as a dynamic and versatile collaborator, performing with such diverse organizations as Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Florestan Project, Boston Musica Viva, and Opera-To-Go. During the summer of 2000, Ms. d'Amato participated in a recital tour of Brazil with flutist Mauricio Garcia, which included a chamber music professorship at the 32nd Winter Festival in Diamantina. Ms. d'Amato studied with Robert McDonald at Oberlin Conservatory, and earned a double Master of Music degree in solo and collaborative piano from Cleveland Institute of Music. During the summer of 2001, she was a pianist at the Tanglewood Music Center in the Vocal Fellowship program.

Richard Harteis is the author of ten books of poetry and prose, as well as a memoir entitled MARATHON published by W.W. Norton in 1989 to critical acclaim. He has been a world traveler from years spent in the Peace Corps in Tunisia in the late 1960's to a recent year as Fulbright writer-in-residence at the American University in Bulgaria. For his work in Bulgarian culture, including an anthology of poetry he edited entitled WINDOW ON THE BLACK SEA, he was made a Bulgarian citizen by Presidential decree in 1996.

Mr. Harteis is a world traveler who takes a particular interest in the Arab world from living in countries such as Morocco, Egypt and Lebanon. He has worked as a health practitioner in world capitols from Beirut to Bamaco to Beijing. Mr. Harteis has taught literature and creative writing at a number of institutions over the years such as The Catholic University of America, Creighton University and Connecticut College. He has received honors and awards for his work including fellowships from the  National Endowment for the Arts, the D.C. Commission on the Arts, and the Ford Foundation.

His most recent publications include a novel, SAPPHIRE DAWN, a new and selected poems, PROVENCE, and the re-issue of a non-fiction work first published by W.W. Norton in 1989 entitled MARATHON. All three works are available through Vivisphere Books.

PROGRAM
           
I. Introduction by Richard Harteis
II. Musical Presentations of Tempus Fugit and What I Remember The Writers Telling Me When I Was Young
III. Effort At Speech read by Richard Harteis
IV. A Major Work (Divine Energy) read by Michael Collier
Divine Energy, Orpheus and Architecture of an Afternoon Nap Performed by Janna Baty and Alison d'Amato
V. Word Songs Video Presentation
VI. Musical Presentation of The Dolphins and The Fear of Beasts
Music composed by David Leisner

        

LINK TO VIDEO FILM OF THE BULGARIAN CONCERT IN VARNA

PROGRAM FOUR

William Meredith Arts Festival

A day-long celebration of William Meredith’s life and work at several universities where Mr. Meredith's archives are housed and where he has taught including:

- Middlebury College
- Princeton University
- Connecticut College

Other venues important venues where William Meredith taught or worked will include

- The Library of Congress (where he served as US Poet Laureate)   
- Yale University
- The American Academy of Poetry, N.Y. (Where he served as Chancellor and as a Director in the Board of Directors)
- American University (The Katzen Center)

The festival will include the following components:

1. Poetry readings by established American poets who were William's proteges and good friends during his lifetime including, Edward Hirsch, President of the Guggenheim Foundation,  Michael Collier, Director of the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and Ellen Bryant Voigt, Vermont Poet Laureate.

2. Launching of cd and dvd of William Meredith reading his own work.

3. Presentation of Meredith's works and tribute collections including The Wreck of the Thresher (published by Mystic Seaport) and ECHOES, Poems for William (Vivisphere Books)

4. Screening of the film, MARATHON

5. Critical analysis in the William Meredith Lecture, given alternately by former colleagues at Connecticut College, Professor Janet Gezari, and  Professor Robley Evans

Performing Artists:

Edward Hirsch
Edward Hirsch was born in Chicago in 1950 and educated both at Grinnell College and the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a Ph.D. in folklore.

His first collection of poems, For the Sleepwalkers, was published in 1981 and went on to receive the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets and the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University. His second collection, Wild Gratitude (1986), received the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Since then, he has published several books of poems, most recently Special Orders (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008); Lay Back the Darkness (2003); On Love (1998); Earthly Measures (1994); and The Night Parade (1989).

He is also the author of the prose volumes The Demon and the Angel: Searching for the Source of Artistic Inspiration (Harcourt, 2002), Responsive Reading (1999), and the national bestseller How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry (1999), which the poet Garrett Hongo called "the product of a lifetime of passionate reflection" and "a wonderful book for laureate and layman both." Most recently, he published Poet's Choice (Harcourt, 2007), which collects two years' worth of his weekly essay-letters running in the Washington Post Book World.

About his poetry, the poet Dana Goodyear wrote for the Los Angeles Times Book Review, "It takes a brave poet to follow Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Milton into the abyss . . . Hirsch's poems [are] compassionate, reverential, sometimes relievingly ruthless."

Hirsch has received fellowships from the Guggenheim and MacArthur foundations, an Ingram Merrill Foundation Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, an Academy of Arts and Letters Award, and a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Writers' Award.

He has been a professor of English at Wayne State University and the University of Houston. Hirsch is currently the president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

In 2008, he was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

Michael Collier (1953 - )
In addition to publishing collections of his own verse, award-winning poet Michael Collier has edited a number of anthologies. Collier brings together the work of more than eighty poets in The Wesleyan Tradition: Four Decades of American Poetry. The "quality" of the 1995 anthology is "as high as the range is broad," commended a Publishers Weekly critic, who believed that The Wesleyan Tradition is an unquestionably "good anthology." Collier then worked with Stanley Plumly to edit The New Bread Loaf Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry. Collier, who became associated with the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in 1992 and later became its director, is one of the anthology's eighty-two contributors. "[T]he editors were drawn to quiet works and chose to create a chamber music-like anthology," described Booklist's Donna Seaman, who praised the volume's "high-caliber work." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly also indicated that The New Bread Loaf Anthology contains many prominent authors who "deliver some virtuoso performances." However, the reviewer concluded that "the book reflects less of a 'commitment to the future of the nation's poetry,' as the editors profess, than a veneration for its glorious past." Graham Christian, writing in Library Journal, judged the anthology to be "perhaps the best single volume of contemporary poetry now available—a superb introduction."

The first collection of Collier's own poetry, The Clasp and Other Poems, appeared in 1986, and The Folded Heart appeared three years later. Objects, and the relationship between an object and its owner, are portrayed in The Neighbor, Collier's third book of poetry. As Collier told Contemporary Authors, objects are important: "I suppose . . . that I believe almost literally in Williams' notion of 'no ideas but in things.' I'm a consumer. I like things. I'm fascinated by the mechanical world. Although the virtual world doesn't yet have its hold on me, it contains all the necessary ingredients. But gears and levers and pulleys, I can't get enough of."

In The Neighbor Collier's poems "maintain their balance by honing in on things, usually things small or light enough to be held in one hand," commented James Longenbach in Yale Review. "Like Hardy, who could write a poem about anything, Collier can focus on almost any object—the most unassuming, improbable object—and spin a story out of it, unfold its significance in ways we would never have predicted." Noting the "understated darkness" of these poems, Longenbach added, "Collier's poems unearth a sinister and yet oddly comic cast of misfits, ogres, and giants," which Bruce Murphy also remarked about in his review for Poetry. Collier's poems "strive unapologetically for truth," observed Murphy, "[y]et there is also something surreal and garish about these snapshots. . . . The poems aren't weird, but the world they describe is." "Collier's descriptions seem edgeless and perfect, if not always passionate," analyzed Murphy, asserting that this is not always a strength. He contended that sometimes "the very sureness of the poet's grip on language, his fluency and ability to get it to show what he wants it [to] show, betrays the poem." Murphy concluded that we may "miss the handholds for the imagination offered when a poem allows words to open to their own complex associations instead of cauterizing them." Writing in the London Review of Books, John Redmond praised Collier's use of description in The Neighbor, stating, "simple, accurate description, with metaphorical resonance, is used to great effect. . . . In poem after poem, he selects just the right details to describe these men and what they do. Within three lines, for instance, we can see the tree-cutter in 'Brueghel.'" Judging the work to be a "fine collection," Redmond remarked that reading through The Neighbor, "one feels that one is learning something from each poem, to the point of feeling sorry when they end."

Youth, lies, siblings, and father-son relations are among the subjects in Collier's fourth volume of poetry, The Ledge, which garnered mixed reviews. In the Bloomsbury Review, Jeff Biggers judged the collection to be "compelling and exquisite" and compared Collier's poems favorably to those of Randall Jarrell. "Collier renders the intimacy and intensity of our lives into delicate, smooth, and at times unnerving lines of timelessness that blend myth and biblical touches with everyday experiences." On the other hand, Publishers Weekly reported that Collier's "ruminations . . . have their descriptive charms, but generally lack the dramatic urgency necessary to sustain the book as a whole." So too, Brian Henry of the New York Times Book Review was unimpressed with Collier's use of language and called the collection uneven. About his use of language, Collier told Contemporary Authors: "The music I'm most attuned to . . . is the one inherent in colloquial speech. I think one of the poet's jobs is to prove that the resources of colloquial speech are adequate to the demands of poetry. Another way of saying this is that we are by necessity training others—readers of poems, I presume—how to hear poetry in the bits and pieces of language everyone already uses, a language that Marianne Moore unabashedly characterized as 'plain American which cats and dogs can read!'" Booklist contributor Ray Olson praised Collier for the "emotionality" of the poems in The Ledge, which "is beautifully announced by the first poem in the book, 'Argos.'"

Ellen Bryant Voigt
Ellen Bryant Voigt was born and raised on a farm in Virginia. As a child, she showed an aptitude for music and began playing the piano. Initially a music major, Voigt attended Converse College for its music conservatory, but eventually she shifted her studies to literature and poetry. She went on to receive an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa.

She is the author of several collections of poetry, most recently Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006 (W.W. Norton & Co., 2007); Shadow of Heaven (2002), which was a finalist for the National Book Award; Kyrie (1995), a finalist for the National Book Critic's Circle Award; Two Trees (1992); The Lotus Flowers (1987); The Forces of Plenty (1983); and Claiming Kin (1976).

Her work as an editor includes Hammer and Blaze: A Gathering of Contemporary American Poets (with Heather McHugh, 2002); The Flexible Lyric (2001), a collection of essays on craft; and Poets Teaching Poets: Self and the World (with Gregory Orr, 1996), a collection of essays on the craft and relevance of poetry. She has also contributed photography for Kathleen Pierce's book of poetry, Mercy (1991).

Voigt's earlier work has been praised by Stanley Kunitz for its "sense of mutability and loss, an abiding set of loyalties, and a fierce attachment to the land." More recently, Philip Levine noted that her poems "are driven forward by lyrical restraint and by a ferocity of attention... Her writing has achieved the ambition of great poetry, the contact baptism of newly created things."

Voigt's honors include the 2002 Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets, the 2002 O. B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize, grants from the Vermont Council on the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation, as well as a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund fellowship and a Pushcart Prize.

In 1976, she developed and directed the nation's first low-residency writing program at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont—a design for graduate M.F.A. study that has since been emulated by many other colleges and universities. Since 1981 she has taught in the M.F.A. program for writers at Warren Wilson College.

Voigt has served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets since 2003. She lives in Cabot, Vermont, where she served as the Vermont State Poet from 1999 to 2003.

Janet Gezari
Lucy Marsh Haskell '19 Professor of English

Joined Connecticut College: 1970
Specialization:

    * The English novel since Defoe
    * Victorian culture, poetry, and fiction
    * Contemporary fictions

Janet Gezari received her B.A. degree from Cornell University and her Ph. D. from Yale University and has been teaching at Connecticut College since 1970.

She regularly teaches sections of freshman English, a course in the English novel since Defoe, and courses in both Victorian and contemporary literature. Most recently, she has designed and taught a senior seminar in the novels of Vladimir Nabokov and Salman Rushdie and a course titled "Twice-Told Tales" that pairs canonical English novels with novels or films that respond to them.

She was an early supporter of women's studies at the College and has served as Acting Director of Women's Studies and of Gender and Women's Studies. She was Acting Director of the program when the Fuller-Maathai chair was endowed and named. She has also co-directed the College's SATA India program, including Fall 2008.

Gezari is the editor of Emily Brontë: The Complete Poems (Penguin Press, 1991) and author of Charlotte Brontë and Defensive Conduct: the Author and the Body at Risk (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992). Her book on Charlotte Brontë was selected as an Outstanding Academic Book by Choice in 1993 and jointly awarded the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize by the British Academy in 1994. She has also published articles on the Brontës, George Eliot, Vladimir Nabokov, and Bob Dylan. Her book on Emily Brontë, Last Things: Emily Brontë's Poems, was published by Oxford University Press in February 2007. She also recently re-edited Charlotte Brontë's Shirley in the Oxford World Classics series.

Gezari has received several NEH and College grants in support of her scholarship and teaching. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

Edward Hirsch, William Meredith, Michael Collier

Program Five

Sculpture

Commission of two major works as part of a memorial park at Riverrun, William's Meredith's home in Connecticut declared an Historic Landmark in 2007 by the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism. William's Meredith's remains are interred in the eastern corner of the property under a great oak tree that features in Mr. Meredith's poetry.

Sculpture One: "Poetry Triumphant" by Kroum Dimitrov Damyanov

Kroum Damyanov, Bulgaria's greatest living sculptor has created national monuments on a grand scale including a series of arches in Cherven Bryac for three decades. William Meredith was accorded Bulgarian citizenship by decree of President Zhelu Zhelev and the parliament in 1996 for his work in the culture. This monument will recognize the important cultural bridge between our two countries that William first established when he was the Poet Laureate of the United States. The arch which will lead to the memorial park and feature classic symbols for poetry as well as recognize William's role as a Navy pilot during WWII and Korea.

Mr.  Damyanov will be invited to the US as part of an international artist's exchanged program with the Washington Sculptor's Group, a professional guild including 400 practicing artists in the Washington, D.C. area. One of their members will be invited to work at the artists retreat in Cherven Bryac.

Biographical Information
Prof. Kroum Damyanov was born on August 8th 1937 in the village of Rakitovo He is a graduate in sculpture works at HIA"N.Pavlovich" in the course of L.Dalchev.
# Other works: "The Defenders of Stara Zagora" 1973 with associates
# "Flag Of Peace"1979 with associates
# The Memorial of Asenevtsi 1985 V.Tyrnovo with associates

Sculpture Two: "Guardian Angel" by Nancy Frankel

An eight foot sculpture of an angel in steel created by Nancy Frankel of Kensington, Maryland who taught Mr. Meredith sculpture after his stroke as a kind of art therapy. Ms. Frankel became a devoted friends for many years in Meredith's life.
    
Resume
     
Selected Exhibitions
     
SOLO
"Retrospective Exhibition", Studio Gallery, Washington, DC     2006
"Paintings and Sculpture," Studio Gallery, Washington, DC     2004
"New Connections," Columbia Fest.of the Arts, Howard Comm. Coll., MD 2000
"Play on Forms," New London Art Society Gallery, CT     2000
"Signs of Life," New Sculpture, Studio Gallery, Washington DC     l998
     
"Music of the Spheres," Sculpture, Drawings, Studio Gallery, Washington DC
  1994
"Progression and Change," Large Sculpture, Studio Gallery, Washington DC     1991
     
Sculpture, Studio Gallery, Washington DC     l988
Sculpture, Studio Gallery, Washington DC     l986
Sculpture, Studio Gallery, Washington DC     l983
Sculpture and Drawings, Studio Gallery, Washington DC     l981
Sculpture, Emerson Gallery, McLean, VA      
             
JURIED      
WSG Sculpture Now 2004, Washington Square,Washington DC 2004
"to extremes", Montpelier Cultural Arts Center, Laurel, MD     2004
"Five Artists/Five Decades", Glenview Mansion Art Gallery, Rockville, MD      2002
Brookside Gardens Sculpture Show, Wheaton, MD     l998, l999, 2000
"Sculpture Now '99," Washington Sculptors Group, Washington DC     1999
"Three Artists, a Collaboration," Mansion Gallery, Rockville, MD     l998
"Drawings and Maquettes," Washington Sculptors Group, Washington DC     l998
Purchase Competition, Radford University, VA     l995-96
Sculpture at Quiet Waters, Annapolis, MD     l995-96
WSG 10th Anniversary Show, Washington Square, Washington DC     l993-94
Sculpture on the Grounds, Rockville Civic Center Park, MD     l993
"Freestate 3," Rockville Arts Place, Rockville, MD     l993
Montgomery County Juried Exhibition, Strathmore Hall, Rockville, MD     1988,90,93
"Sculpture "90," Washington Sculptors Group, Sumner School, Wash.DC     1990
"DC Sculpture Now," Washington Sculptors Group, Sumner School, Washington, DC     1989
"The Art of Drawing," Prince Georges County, MD traveling show     1987-88
"Sculpture "87," Johnson Atelier, NJ     1987
Garden Sculpure, Audebon Society, Kensington, MD     1985-86
"Three Rivers Art Festival," Pittsburgh, PA     l985
"Translucid," Washington Square, Washington, DC     l985
"Paper Works," Athenaeum, Alexandria, VA     l985
AEA, "Works Under Glass," Montgomery College, Rockville, MD,     l981
AEA Sculpture and Print Show, Catholic University, Washington DC,     l980
Montgomery County Juried Exhibition, Montgomery College, Rockville, MD l979, 80
New York International Sculpure Fair, New York City     l979
Second Annual Sculpture Show, Arlington Arts Center, VA     l979
"Four Artists," Washington Women's Center, Washington, DC     l978
Baltimore Beinalle, Baltimore, MD     l974
Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC     l964
Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany     l963
             
INVITATIONAL      
"A Gathering of Witnesses," Wash. Theological Union, Washington DC     l999
"Sixty Celebrates Sixty," Duke Ellington Sch. of Arts, Washington DC,     l997
Twelve Plus One," Sculpture in the Garden, U of MD, College Park, MD,     l994-95
"Surfaces in Light," Art Barn, Washington DC,     l989
Two Person Show, Plum Gallery, Kensington, MD,     l986
"Ten in the Park," Art Barn, Washington DC,     l982
"Three Artists," Plum Gallery, Kensington, MD,     l982
"Miniature Show,"   Foundry Gallelry, Washington DC,     l981
"Sand and Plexiglas," GSA Building, Washington DC,     l981
Gallery Artists Show, Cramer Gallery, Washington DC,     l979,80
"Sculpture in Many Media," Plum Gallery, Kensington, MD,     l980
"Maquettes to Monuments," Studio Gallery, Washington DC,     l980
"Artist Immigrants of Washington," WPA, Washington DC,     l976
"Eight Women Artists," Annapolis, MD     l974
             
OTHERS      
Art-O-Matic, Washington, DC,     2000
"The Continuum Exhibition," M Gallery, Washington DC,     l993
Studio Gallery at George Meany Center, Silver Spring, MD,     l991
Open Studio Artists Show, Rockville Arts Place, Rockville, MD,     1991
"Six Sculptures at the Nickelodeon," Washington DC,     l990,91
"Large Sculptures,"   Rockville Arts Place, Rockville, MD,     l990
Studio Gallery at Marboro Gallery, Prince Georges Comm.Coll. MD,     l988
The Studio Gallery in New York, Equitable Galllery, New York City,     l984
"Two Views," Marboro Gallery, Prince Georges Comm. Coll, MD,     1883
AEA Sculpture, 11th ISC, Meridian   House, Washington DC,     l980
"Important Works and Drawings," Art Barn, Washington DC,     l978
Sculpture in Rockville, Civic Center, Rockville, MD     l978
Faculty Show, Montgomery College, Rockville, MD,     l969-94
Stangl Gallery, Munich, Germany,     l962
             
AWARDS      
FY09 Grant for new work, the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, Md. 2009
Cash Prize for Biomorphic Clay Sculptures, "to extremes",     2004
Finalist in Mary Trumbo Park Competition, Rockville,     2003
Finalist in 3 Montgomery County % in Arch. Competition,     l987,88
Juror's Discretionary Prize, Three Rivers Festival, Pittsburg,PA,     l985
Second Prize, Sculpture "87, Johnson Atelier, NJ,     l987
First Prize, Sculpture, Montgomery County Juried Exhibition,     l978,80
             
COLLECTIONS & COMMISSIONS      
Outdoor Sculpture, Lerner Corporation, Tysons 11, McLean, VA      
Commission for "Sister Moon", Solanus Casey Center, Capuchin Order,Detroit, MI,     2002
Commission for Sun Dial, Keene State College, Keene, NH, (in progress)     2000
Commission for Sun Dial, Friendship Terrace, Washington DC, l997      
Portrait Sculpture, St. Columba"s Episcopal Church, Washington, DC      
Outdoor Sculpture Program, Montgomery College, Rockville, MD 1981, 88-90,99
National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC      
Commission for Sculpture, Horizon Hill Park, Rockville, MD     l983
             
EDUCATION      
Art Academy, Munich, Germany      
Sculpture Center, New York City      
Hans Hoffman School of Painting, New York City      
MA in Ed., Columbia University, New York City      
BFA, Tyler School of Fine Arts, Temple University

REPRESENTED BY:      
Studio Gallery, Washington DC

 

PROGRAM SIX

First Book Publication Competition

First Book Competition in honor of William Meredith. Publication of a first book of poetry with Carnegie Mellon University Press, selected by jury for a beginning poet of great promise. This is to be a national competition with established poets as judges of the submissions. The winning poet will be invited to attend one of the William Meredith Festival events at a reception in his or her honor.

About the Press

Now celebrating 37 years of publishing!

Founded in 1972 as Three Rivers Press, a publisher of poetry, Carnegie Mellon University Press’ particular strength continues to lie in literary publishing with the following series:

• Carnegie Mellon Poetry Series
• Carnegie Mellon Classic Contemporaries Series (the reissuing of significant early books by important contemporary poets and writers of short fiction)
• Carnegie Mellon Series in Translation
• Carnegie Mellon Series in Short Fiction
• Poets in Prose Series (titles have included memoir in the form of poets writing about their writing lives, poetry criticism, and the epistolary novel).

The Press also publishes in art, music, the performing arts, critical analysis, education, University history, and social history. Additionally, Carnegie Mellon has an emerging program in the publishing of texts related to entertainment technology. Carnegie Mellon is unique among American universities in offering interactive studies in the fine arts and computer technology.

WILLIAM’S BOOK, THE WRECK OF THE THRESHER PUBLISHED BY MYSTIC SEAPORT.

Program Seven

Maintenance of "Riverrun," William Meredith's home designated an historic landmark which houses the William Meredith Center for the Arts

• Driveway resurfacing
• Tree transplanting for Memorial Garden
• Tree pruning and cable re-enforcement
• Hedge of Arborvitae trees to create a border on the southern border of Riverrun.
• Bench and landscaping for Memorial Garden
• New gutters for main house
• Replacing the heating system of "Riverrun" enabling year-round residencies

Program Eight

Construction of a two bedroom annex to the William Meredith Center for the arts to house visiting artists and provide studio space in which to work. Currently, the facilities are limited to a small studio apartment for visiting artists who must rely on off campus studio space. The fine local architect, Mark Comeau has volunteered his services to help construct this annex.