Last night, Baker Artist Award winners were announced on Maryland Public Television, and we were elated to learn that the amazing sculptor Joyce J. Scott (a living legend) received the tip-top Mary Sawyers Imboden Prize worth $50,000, a new offering this year. Scott’s works boldly confront racism and stereotyping–and her rich sense of play and humor are unique…unforgettable. She makes sculptures, jewelry, figurines, wall hangings, more. “I put everything into my portfolio,” Scott told The Baltimore Sun, “including a picture of me in utero and me having sex with a Kardashian so I could get the bloody money.”
In equally thrilling news, writer Jen Grow received the first-ever $20,000 Mary Sawyers Baker Prize for her introspective story collection, My Life as a Mermaid. “I’m so excited to be the first writer to win the Mary Sawyers Baker Prize! This is great, not just for me, but for the whole literary community because it opens up possibilities for others,” Grow says. “I’m looking forward to taking myself on lots of self-directed writing retreats, to lock myself in a room or a cabin and write for days on end. I’ve got so many projects in the works–another story collection, a novel draft, a book of personal essays–that I’m not sure which will rise to the surface first, but I can’t wait to find out!”
Proud aside: Grow contributed short fiction to STYLE’s first-ever fiction issue last summer. She is fiction editor of Little Patuxent Review.
Three $5,000 prize winners are filmmaker Matt Porterfield, painter Bill Schmidt and designer Naoko Maeshiba.
View winners’ creative work at the Baltimore Museum of Art from August 14 to September 16.
