Blake Bathman is the 2023 Winner of the $2,500 North Texas Art Writing Prize

by Glasstire March 23, 2023

Blake Bathman has been awarded the 2023 Glasstire North Texas Art Writing Prize. In their winning essay, titled Catching Feelings: Jes Fan’s “Networks for Rupture and Dispersal,” Bathman writes about the ways in which Fan’s sculpture, which is comprised of black mold sealed inside glass, mirrors society’s aversion toward and treatment of queer people. The $2,500 prize includes the winning essay being published on Glasstire, and a celebration in Bathman’s honor this evening. 

A headshot of writer Blake Bathman.

Blake Bathman

Bathman received their BA in Visual and Performing Arts with an Art History Concentration from the University of Texas at Dallas. They study burgeoning digital mediums and their applications in contemporary art by queer and BIPOC artists.

Judges for this round of the Prize included Lauren Cross, the Gail-Oxford Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts at The Huntington; Alison Hearst, Curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Brandon Zech, Publisher of Glasstire; Jessica Fuentes, News Editor of Glasstire; and William Sarradet, Assistant Editor of Glasstire.

As announced last September, the 2023 North Texas Glasstire Art Writing Prize is a competitive award designed to find and highlight emerging arts writers in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. This is the sixth year of the Prize, which has focused on various regions across Texas, including Central Texas (2022), Greater Houston (2021), North Texas (2023, 2021, 2019, 2018)  and San Antonio (2020). 

In conjunction with this year’s Prize, Bathman, along with several runners up, will participate in a Glasstire-led Writing Seminar this weekend. 

Thank you to our supporters of the 2023 North Texas Prize:

PARTNER
Laura & Walter Elcock
Marguerite Steed Hoffman

CONTRIBUTOR
Charles Dee Mitchell
Deedie Rose
Karen & Howard Weiner

FRIEND
Misty Barnett & Chris Trahan
Rebecca W Bruder
Emily Chambers & Brandon Zech
Scott Chase
J. Patrick Collins
Michael Corris
Susan & Warren Ernst
Heimbinder Family Foundation
Hignite Projects
Holly Johnson
Sheryl Kolasinski
The Old Jail Art Center
Jay Shinn & Tim Hurst
Allison V. Smith & Barry Whistler
Brianne Strong & James Pattison
Eleanor L Williams
Christen & Derek Wilson

Additional Supporters Include:
Conduit Gallery, Joan Davidow, Celia Eberle, Adelaide Leavens

About The Glasstire Art Writing Prize

The Glasstire Art Writing Prize is awarded to a senior undergraduate or graduate student at a Texas university. For this open call, students from art history, journalism, studio arts, philosophy, literature, and other departments at participating universities in the Central Texas area were invited to submit articles with a word count between 750 and 1200 words about a work of art that they love, and why.

Past Prizes

The 2022 Central Texas Art Writing Prize winner was Allison Marino, a MA student at the University of Texas at Austin. Her winning essay, Old, New, and Back Again: What’s in a Map?, was about the unique perspectives of maps that were created by Indigenous artists during the mid-16th century. Guest jurors for the Prize included Austin and Mexico-based independent curator Leslie Moody Castro, and  Elyse A. Gonzales, Director of Ruby City in San Antonio. The 2022 Central Texas Prize was generously sponsored by Suzanne Deal Booth; Annette Carlozzi and Dan Bullock; Michael Chesser; Deborah Dupré and Richard Rothberg; Jane Hilfer and Alec Rhodes; The Meyer Levy Fund – Tobin Levy; Pat & Bud Smothers; AnaPaula and Mark Watson; and others. 

The 2021 North Texas Art Writing Prize winner was Kevin Zander Johnson, a PhD student at UT Dallas, who wrote about Spike Lee’s landmark film Do the Right Thing. Guest jurors for the Prize included Anna Katherine Brodbeck, the Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art, and lauren woods, artist and Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Brandeis University. The 2021 North Texas Prize was generously sponsored by The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation; Laura and Walter Elcock; Marguerite Steed Hoffman; Charles Dee Mitchell, and others.

The 2021 Greater Houston Art Writing Prize winner was Justin Jannise, a Ph.D. student at the University of Houston, who wrote about TRUE NORTH 2020, the Heights Boulevard sculpture exhibition. Guest jurors for the Prize included Molly Glentzer, former Senior Writer and Critic, Arts & Culture for the Houston Chronicle, and Gabriel Martinez, artist and Director of Alabama Song. The 2021 Greater Houston Prize was generously sponsored by The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation; The Brown Foundation, Inc.; Foltz Fine Art; Cece & Mack Fowler; Melanie Gray & Mark Wawro; Poppi Georges Massey; and others.

The 2020 San Antonio Art Writing Prize winner was Christina Frasier, a doctoral student at the University of Texas at San Antonio in the Anthropology Department, where she studies cultural sustainability in the face of gentrification. Her winning essay was titled Resistance In Place: Christopher Montoya’s Mural of Cesar Chavez, San Antonio, about an exceptional mural’s location and restoration in a San Antonio neighborhood that’s experiencing the forces of gentrification.

The 2019 North Texas Art Writing Prize winner was Mathieu Debic, a PhD student at UT Dallas, who wrote about David Lynch’s 1984 film Dune. Guest jurors for the Prize included Jeremy Strick, Director of the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, and Terri Thornton, Curator of Education at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The 2019 North Texas Prize was generously sponsored by Laura and Walter Elcock; Lindsey and Patrick Collins; Elisabeth and Panos Karpidas; John and Lisa Runyon; and Eleanor Williams.

The inaugural 2018 North Texas Art Writing Prize winner was Melanie Shi, a student of Philosophy at the University of North Texas in Denton, who wrote about The Color Inside, a skyspace artwork by American artist James Turrell. Guest jurors for the Prize included Augustín Arteaga, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art, and Anne Bothwell, Vice President of Arts for KERA. The 2018 North Texas Prize was generously sponsored by Lindsey and Patrick Collins; Laura and Walter Elcock; Elisabeth and Panos Karpidas; Jana and Hadley Paul; and Cindy and Howard Rachofsky.

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