Three Valley artists, and one each from Holyoke and Springfield, have won $12,000 Artist Fellowship awards from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
The Cultural Council, based in Boston, has awarded 16 of the $12,000 prizes for 2017 — for crafts, dramatic writing, and sculpture/installation — meaning artists from the greater Pioneer Valley have won nearly a third of the prizes.
One of the winners for crafts is Silas Kopf, the fine-furniture maker and designer who’s earned much acclaim for his work in marquetry, the art and craft of applying decorative designs, made of thin veneers of wood and other materials, to furniture.
Kopf, a Northampton resident who works in Easthampton, won national recognition for his work two years ago from a group affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; one of his pieces is now a permanent part of the Renwick Gallery in Washington, which is devoted to American craft and decorative arts.
Another Northampton arts winner, for dramatic writing, is poet Lenelle Moïse, a former poet laureate of the city who won awards in 2015 for her first collection of verse, “Haiti Glass.” Moïse is also an award-winning playwright and performance artist as well as the 2017 Lakes Writer-in-Residence at Smith College.
A third Valley winner, Mara Superior, lives in Williamsburg but has Northampton ties: She’s a founding partner of Pinch Pottery on Main Street. With a background both in painting and ceramics — her pottery has appeared in the White House Collection of American Craft and the Smithsonian Institution — Superior won a $12,000 Cultural Council award for crafts.
As well, playwright Liz Duffy Adams of Holyoke and poet/playwright/performer Magdalena GoÌmez have won Artist Fellowships from the council.
Another Northampton resident, mixed-media artist Sally Curcio, has been awarded $1,000 from the Cultural Council.