Artist fellowships

Two University of Delaware faculty members have received 2015 Individual Artist Fellowships from the state Division of the Arts in recognition of the high quality of their work.

Clarinetist Christopher Nichols, assistant professor of music, and painter Lance Winn, associate professor of art, were honored in the “established professional” category, which provides each recipient with a $6,000 award.

“Individual Artist Fellowship grants provide the recognition and exposure that artists need to successfully promote their work,” said Paul Weagraff, director of the division. “The financial award allows them to pursue advanced training, purchase equipment and materials or fulfill other needs to advance their careers.”

Fellows are required to present a performance or exhibit during the year to provide the public with the opportunity to experience their work, he said.

This year’s awards were given to 16 choreographers, composers, musicians, writers and visual artists in three categories. They were selected from 91 artists whose work was reviewed by out-of-state professionals, who considered the nominees’ creativity and skill.

Christopher Nichols, assistant professor of music

Nichols is a recitalist, military bandsman, orchestral musician and educator who makes frequent appearances throughout the United States and Europe and is in demand as a master class clinician and recitalist.

He spends part of the summer as a clarinet instructor at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Twin Lake, Michigan, where he also performs with the Blue Lake Festival Band and Orchestra.

Nichols has had a long career in the U.S. Army Music Career Program, first on active duty and currently as a reservist, performing with Army bands around the world. His service has been recognized with the Army Commendation Medal, the Army Achievement Medal and the Col. Finley R. Hamilton Outstanding Military Musician Award.

He performs frequently with his professional chamber music group, Payton and the Pipes, a unique combination of countertenor, flute and clarinet that actively commissions and premieres new literature.

In 2013, Nichols made his debut performance at the International Clarinet Association’s Clarinetfest in Assisi, Italy, in a recital of works for voice, clarinet and piano that included the world premiere of composer Joseph Eidson’s Birds of Passage for countertenor, clarinet and piano.

More information, including sound clips, is available at his website.

​Winn is an artist, writer and curator who received his master’s degree in fine arts (MFA) from Cranbrook Academy of Art with a concentration in painting. At UD, he runs the MFA program and is on the faculty of the Center for Material Culture Studies.

His robotic video installations, in collaboration with Simone Jones, have been shown at Nuit Blanche in Toronto, the Ronald Feldman gallery in New York and at the Icebox in Philadelphia. Their most recent piece, “End of Empire,” was included in the Montreal Biennial. 

His personal work has been included in a range of recent books, including a collection on three-dimensional typography, and was represented in the article “Contemporary Developments in Drawing,” published in Contemporary magazine.

His work has been shown nationally and internationally and in 2007 was collected for a five-year survey at the Freedman Gallery.

From painting to robotic and three-dimensional modeling, Winn investigates a poetics of construction that might speak to current conditions, particularly as they relate to mediation and technology.

He is studying alternate systems of visualization, particularly thermal imaging and other ways of seeing outside the visual spectrum, and is working with ways of capturing three-dimensional information. 

More information about his work is available at his website.​