The Nebraska Arts Council announced the recipients of their Individual Artist Fellowships (IAF) in April. Three artists with UNL ties received IAFs.
The IAF program recognizes exemplary career achievements by Nebraska artists. It supports originating artists in their respective fields by providing public recognition and monetary awards.
Associate Professor of Art Liz Ingraham received a $5,000 Distinguished Artist IAF. A sculptor whose work gives form and voice to lived experience, she teaches Visual Literacy and Creativity 101, an Honors seminar in creative thinking for first-year science and business majors. As part of a team with faculty from Computer Science, Digital Humanities and Educational Psychology, Ingraham was awarded an National Science Foundation grant to integrate creative thinking into beginning computer science courses and her team also has a grant to develop a Center for Computational Creativity at UNL. Her research into computational creativity is part of her on-going interest in integrating the digital (pixels and code) with the digital (the work of the hand). Her current work, Mapping Nebraska, is a stitched, drawn and digitally imaged cartography of the state.
Yinghua Zhu (M.F.A. 2010) received a $5,000 Distinguished Artist IAF. Born and raised in China, Zhu has been living and working in Omaha for 14 years. Following her graduation from UNL with a Master of Fine Arts, she purchased and renovated an old appliance store in the Omaha neighborhood of Benson, where she initiated the artist co-operative Studio That Way. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She is currently working on a public art commission that will result in a permanent installation at Project Harmony. She is also an artist-in-residence at Angel Works, where she works with young adults with Down syndrome.
Sheila Talbitzer (B.A. 1997) received a $1,000 Merit Award IAF. Born and raised in Omaha, she received her Bachelor of Arts from UNL. She went on to teach elementary school art and then high school English before receiving an M.FA. in photography from Notre Dame. She is a member of the photography faculty at Metropolitan Community Colllege in Omaha.