Glasstire is pleased to announce the 2024 Central Texas Art Writing Prize, a competitive award designed to find and highlight emerging arts writers in the greater Austin/San Antonio region. The winner of the Prize will be awarded $2,500 and their work will be published on Glasstire, the online publication for art in Texas. In addition, they will be celebrated at a cocktail party in the late spring of 2024. The winner, along with selected runners-up, will also be invited to participate in a Glasstire-led writing workshop this coming spring.
The Glasstire Art Writing Prize is awarded to a senior undergraduate or graduate student at a Texas university. For this Central Texas open call, students from art history, journalism, studio arts, philosophy, literature, and all other departments at participating universities in the greater Austin/San Antonio area are invited to submit articles starting today, September 12, 2023. The deadline for submissions is February 16, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. Any questions about the Prize can be directed to Glasstire’s editorial staff at [email protected].
Judges for this round of the Prize include Annette Carlozzi, an Austin-based independent curator; Rigoberto Luna, Co-Founder and Director of Presa House Gallery in San Antonio; Brandon Zech, Publisher of Glasstire; Jessica Fuentes, News Editor of Glasstire; and William Sarradet, Assistant Editor of Glasstire.
How to Enter
Entrants must submit one article, with a word count between 750 and 1,200 words, about a work of art that they love, and why. Only one submission per author will be considered. Please submit your article as either a Word document or PDF to [email protected]. Use the email subject line “Central Texas 2024.” Please do not include any identifying information (name, school, student classification (senior/graduate student) etc.) in the document file, as all submissions will be juried blindly. Instead, include your bio and this identifying information in the body of your email. The deadline for submissions is February 16, 2024 at 11:59 pm.
Eligibility
Submission is open to all students currently enrolled in universities and colleges in the Central Texas region (schools within a 60-mile radius of either Austin or San Antonio) who are either undergraduate seniors or are in any graduate-level (Master’s degree or PhD) program. Direct any questions to [email protected].
Criteria
Articles submitted for the Prize must be previously unpublished; it is expected that the winning article will be published on Glasstire.
Keep in mind that Glasstire publishes journalistic arts writing. Preference will be shown for interesting, opinionated prose that eschews academic jargon. Ask yourself if the essay is something you would want to read.
Past Prizes
The 2023 North Texas Art Writing Prize winner was Blake Bathman, an undergraduate student studying Visual and Performing Arts with an Art History Concentration at the University of Texas at Dallas, who wrote about a sculpture by artist Jes Fan. Guest jurors for the Prize included Lauren Cross, the Gail-Oxford Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts at The Huntington, and Alison Hearst, Curator at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The 2023 North Texas Prize was generously sponsored by Laura & Walter Elcock; Marguerite Steed Hoffman; Charles Dee Mitchell; Deedie Rose; Karen & Howard Weiner, and others.
The 2022 Central Texas Art Writing Prize winner was Allison Marino, an MA student at UT Austin, who wrote 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 & Dan Bullock; Michael Chesser; Deborah Dupré & Richard Rothberg; Jane Hilfer & Alec Rhodes; The Meyer Levy Fund – Tobin Levy; Pat & Bud Smothers; AnaPaula & 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, who wrote about Christopher Montoya’s mural of Cesar Chavez in San Antonio. Guest jurors for the Prize included Dr. Rich Aste, Director of the McNay Art Museum, and Anjali Gupta, former Director of Sala Diaz. The 2020 San Antonio Prize was generously sponsored by Caroline and William Carrington; Wendy Atwell; CAPTRUST; Cynthia Toles; Mary Elizabeth Heard; the Smothers Foundation; the 04Arts Foundation; Edward Collins; H-E-B; and Patricia Ruiz-Healy, Ph.D.
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, an undergraduate 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.
On the importance of arts writing, then-Glasstire Editor-in-Chief Christina Rees wrote for the inaugural Prize’s announcement, in her op-ed Why We Need Art Writers Now (More Than Ever):
“The Glasstire Art Writing Prize… can encourage and cultivate the voices who are interested in engaging with the vast amount of visual art that this state churns out. Artists not only deserve honest critical writing about their work. They want it. The best artists, especially, want it. And the glossy lifestyle magazines and ‘curated’ Insta-sites that only embrace the forced glamor and fluff around visual art aren’t giving them (or art fans) this, or starting any meaningful conversation around art and what it can actually do in our culture. Given our current political moment, this problem of lack of real dialogue is especially galling.”
Learn more about the Prize and about Glasstire’s work here.
About Glasstire
Glasstire is an online publication that covers visual art in Texas. Its mission is to expand the conversation about art in the state. It has been continuous operation since January 2001. It is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) publication, supported in part by grants from The Houston Endowment, The Brown Foundation, Inc., the National Endowment for the Arts, the Greater Houston Community Foundation, the City of Houston through Houston Arts Alliance, and the Texas Commission for the Arts. Glasstire’s name is an homage to Robert Rauschenberg’s sculptures of tires cast in glass. The artworks evoke Glasstire’s spirit of traveling great distances, at great speed, with great clarity.
Glasstire is the oldest web-only art magazine in the country.