Cathedral Names 2009-2010 Artist-in-Residence
****Ava Blizt, Visual Artist****
Dr. Riyehee Hong, Director of Music and the Arts at the Philadelphia Cathedral, announced that Ava Blitz, a visual artist who currently spends here her time between studio work in sculpture, works on paper, photography, and public art, has been chosen as the Cathedral’s 2009-2010 Artist-in-Residence.
From 1986 to 1998 she was Associate Lecturer and Fine Arts Program Director at Bryn Mawr College. Blitz’s public works and commissions include Beauty & the Beast at Appel Farm Arts and Music Center, NJ, Floating World at the University City Science Center, created under the auspices of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority 1% for Art Program, and Seeds of Memory in Tokyo, Japan.
Ms. Blitz served on an International Sculpture Symposium panel in Japan, and has lectured on public art for the American Institute of Architects, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, and the Michener Art Museum. She has been the recipient of numerous honors, awards, and fellowships, many of which have funded her public art projects. These include grants from the Japan Foundation, the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, the Leeway Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and the Jerome Foundation. She has exhibited in public parks and plazas, numerous sculpture parks, and at the Philadelphia International Airport. Most recently, she installed a major piece of public art at Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, NJ.
Ava has shown locally at the Michener Art Museum, the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, the Noyes Museum, the Sculpture Garden at Trenton Plaza, and the Allentown Art Museum.
The sponsoring of an Artist- in- Residence in Philadelphia Cathedral is a lead program designed to encourage local artists and at the same time enrich the cathedral’s liturgical space with art work of high quality. In this way contemporary artists can help broaden the horizons of the faith community, and challenges us to think in new ways about old truths and familiar stories.
A large and well-lit studio is provided free in exchange for a work of art to be kept on permanent display at the Cathedral at the end of the artist’s 12 month residency.
For more information on this program, please contact Dr. Riyehee Hong, the Director of Music and the Arts at 215.386.0234, ext 122.
15 Jun, 2009 — Daniel Tomko
