Applications are due Oct. 2 for the sixth cycle of the Mary L. Nohl Fellowships Program for visual artists.

The program, funded by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund and a collaboration of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts and Visual Arts Milwaukee! (VAM!), provides unrestricted funds for artists to create new work or complete work in progress. Seven fellowships will be awarded in 2008: three for established artists ($15,000 each) and four for emerging artists ($5,000 each).

The program is open to practicing artists residing in the four-county Milwaukee Metro area – Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington counties.

To receive application materials and complete eligibility requirements, contact Polly Morris at 229-6771 or by e-mail at pollymorris@ameritech.net. Applications also are available on the Web at arts.uwm.edu/nohl. Awards will be announced on Monday, Nov. 10.

The Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowship program also includes a Suitcase Fund for exporting work by local artists beyond the four-county area. The sixth cycle of the Suitcase Export Fund will open on Dec. 2, when applications and guidelines will become available.

Artist Mary L. Nohl of Fox Point, Wis., died in December 2001 at the age of 87. Her $9.6 million bequest to the Greater Milwaukee Foundation is the largest gift the foundation has received from a single donor in its 90-year history. The fund, by supporting local visual arts and arts education programs, keeps Nohl’s passion for the visual arts alive in the community.  

Nohl Fellows will be selected by a panel of visual arts professionals working outside the four-county area: Valerie J. Mercer, the first curator of African American art and head of the General Motors Center for African American Art at The Detroit Institute of Arts; Laurel Reuter, director and chief curator of the North Dakota Museum of Art; and Eva González-Sancho, director of the Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain – Région Bourgogne (FRAC Bourgogne) in Dijon, France.

In addition to receiving their awards, Nohl Fellows will participate in an exhibition in the autumn of 2009. An exhibition catalogue will be published and disseminated nationally.

A reception honoring the seven Fellows selected in the 2007 cycle of the competition – Gary John Gresl, Mark Klassen and Daniel Ollman (established artists), and Annie Killelea, Faythe Levine, Colin Matthes and Kevin J. Miyazaki (emerging artists) – will be held in conjunction with the opening of the Fellowship Exhibition on Friday, Oct. 10 at Inova/Kenilworth, 2155 N. Prospect Ave. The reception begins at 6 p.m. and is free and open to the public.