The Maine Arts Commission has announced the recipients of the 2009 Artists' Fellowship Awards, one of the nation's highest awards for individual artists made by a state arts agency. The four recipients each will receive a $13,000 grant award, and will be honored during an awards showcase Nov. 21 in Bangor.

This year's four fellows are: Alison Chase, Brooksville, for the performing arts; Don Roy, Gorham, for the traditional arts; Penelope Schwartz Robinson, Cape Elizabeth, for the literary Arts; and Randy Regier, Portland, for the visual arts.

Chase, a dance choreographer, is best known as the founding artistic director of Pilobolus Dance Theater. In 2005, Chase created Apogee Arts.
She plans to use the grant to create Apogee Arts' inaugural work, which will explore the varied ways that people come together. This work will challenge preconceptions about physical form and psychological function, about human purpose shaped into roles, rules and responsibilities through complex relationships.

Roy, a Franco-American fiddler, has been playing the fiddle for more than 30 years. In recent years, he has turned his attention to making fiddles, and says he finds making the instruments at least as satisfying as making the music.
Roy shares his music-making tradition, teaching students privately and through larger workshops statewide. One of the things he likes most about the music in his life is the positive atmosphere it generates. "Music," he said, "is a reason to get together and feel good about life."

Robinson was awarded the Stonecoast Book Prize for her essay collection "Slippery Men," recently published by New Rivers Press. She has taught nonfiction writing and literature at the University of Maine at Farmington and Southern Maine Community College in South Portland.
Robinson intends to use her award and newfound nationwide credibility to pursue her next project, a nonfiction book about her experience of helping a friend through the process of dying.

Regier was chosen from among 130 applicants to be this year's visual arts fellow. He is currently working on "NuPenny," an installation that has all the makings of a toy store, with an aesthetic that references the early- to mid-1960s, but every element will be rendered entirely in photographic grayscale.

About the award, Regier said, "Joseph Campbell has written that 'money is congealed energy.' I can't possibly think of a more elegant way to put it. This grant has given us (Regier and his family) energy to live, and me, personally, energy to create art. As an artist, there is nothing more I could ask for."

The Nov. 21 showcase at the Penobscot Theatre in Bangor will feature presentations from this year's fellows, accompanied by the 2009 Traditional Arts Masters.

Donna McNeil, newly installed as chairman of the Maine Arts Commission, recently addressed a gathering of artists and arts administrators in Brunswick.

I thought it would be worthwhile to share her thoughts, if for no other reason than to put her on record about how she sees her role in the arts.

Here are some of her remarks:

"As director of the Maine Arts Commission, I intend to engage with the field one to one as much as I can – to really listen to your needs, to come and see your efforts in the field. Those are the things that will inform me and will help make me your true champion.

"I see my role as your representative with government, business and the public. I am your advocate, your tax dollars at work, and I take that all very seriously. I am devoted to the arts. I believe they are the mark of our humanity, that they are the vehicle for expressing what words alone cannot deliver."