Staff member contributes cover art for journal

Exhibitions: New for winter quarter

Art professor Annabeth Rosen is among 25 recipients of $25,000 awards in the 2011 Painters and Sculptors Grant Program, sponsored by the New York City-based Joan Mitchell Foundation.

Rosen, who joined the art studio faculty in 1997, holds the Robert Arneson Chair in Ceramic Sculpture. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of Art and Design at Alfred University, N.Y., in 1978, and a Master of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., in 1981.

The Joan Mitchell Foundation is named after the abstract expressionist painter and strives to fulfill her ambitions — to assist the needs of contemporary artists, and to demonstrate that painting and sculpture are significant cultural necessities. Mitchell died in 1992, and the foundation came into being the next year.

Besides the Painters and Sculptors Grant Program, the foundation offers free art classes for New York City youth, grants to M.F.A. graduates to aid in their transition from academic tom professional studio work, and grants to artists and arts communities in need of emergency support after disasters.

The Painters and Sculptors Grant Program dates back to the foundation’s first year, serving to acknowledge artists for creating works of exceptional quality.

The foundation begins the award process by choosing nominators from around the nation — people who are dedicated to supporting artists who are under-recognized for their artistic achievements and whose careers would benefit from grant money.

A jury then reviews images of the candidates’ work, in anonymous judging.

The nominators and jurors include prominent visual artists, curators, and arts educators.

Auditions for House of Bernardo Alba

The Department of Theatre and Dance announced that it will hold auditions Monday and Tuesday, Jan. 9 and 10, for The House of Bernardo Alba, to be directed by Granada Artist-in-Residence Juliette Carrillo. Federico Garcia Lorca completed the drama two months before his murder by Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War.

Wrought with sexual tension, the play explores themes of repression, passion and conformity, and inspects the effects of men upon women as five daughters are confined to their mother’s house for an eight-year period of mourning.

The auditions, open to students, staff and faculty, are scheduled from 6 to 10 p.m. in Main Theatre, with callbacks set for Wednesday, Jan. 11. People interested in auditioning are asked to sign up in 101 Art Building.

For your audition, you should prepare a contemporary or classical monologue, one to three minutes long, showing emotional range, and a one-minute story of a time when you felt oppressed in some way. Also, you should bring a resume and a headshot.

Rehearsals are set to begin Jan. 17, and the production dates are March 8 to 11 and 15 to 18 in Main Theatre.

Follow Dateline UC Davis on Twitter.