The South Carolina Arts Commission has announced its 2008 Individual Artist Fellowship awards. College of Charleston studio art professor Herb Parker will receive one of two fellowships in the Visual Arts category. Each Fellow will be given $5,000 in recognition of his or her superior artistic merit. Fellows and alternates are selected through a competitive, anonymous application process based solely on a review of work samples.
Currently teaching sculpture at the College of Charleston’s School of the Arts, Parker was born in Elizabeth City, N.C. He received a Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from East Carolina University in 1983. Parker served a tour in the Marine Corps during the Vietnam conflict and two years as a Peace Corps volunteer. He also served as a visiting artist and/or instructor at universities in both the U.S. and abroad.
Parker has created more than 40 site-related installations in the environment since the early 1980s, and his work has been commissioned throughout the United States and in Canada, Italy, Japan and Sweden. He has received several honors, including being a recipient of the “Awards in the Visual Arts XI,” which was hosted by the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art. He was also named a South Carolina Arts Commission Artist Fellow in 1993.
The South Carolina Arts Commission is the state agency charged with creating a thriving arts environment that benefits all South Carolinians, regardless of their location or circumstances. Created by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1967, the Arts Commission focuses on increasing public participation in the arts by providing services, grants and leadership initiatives in three areas: arts education, community arts development and artist development. Headquartered in Columbia, S.C., the Arts Commission is funded by the state of South Carolina and by the federal government through the National Endowment for the Arts.