MEDIA CONTACT: Stacia Smith
561-297-2971; ssmith@fau.edu

FAU Professor Awarded Fellowship by the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts

BOCA RATON, FL (May 14, 2003) - Carol Prusa, professor of art in Florida Atlantic University's Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, has been awarded a fellowship by the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA). The VCCA, located near Sweet Briar College in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in rural Virginia, is one of the largest and most prestigious residential retreats for artists in the country. Founded in 1971, the Center serves more than 300 artists a year (over 3,000 since its inception). Prusa will be among approximately 20 fellows, each focusing on their own creative projects in the fields of visual arts, literature, filmmaking and performance art.

Prusa's work has been recognized throughout South Florida. She recently received the South Florida Cultural Consortium's Visual Art Fellowship for Visual and Media Artists, and she received Best in Show awards at the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood's All-Media Juried Biennial and at the Boca Raton Museum of Art's 52nd Annual All Florida Juried Competition and Exhibition. Her work has been showcased at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art, the Coral Springs Museum of Art and in Broward Art Guild's Hortt 43 competition.

Prusa earned her master of fine arts in painting and drawing from Drake University. She taught art at Drake and Iowa State University for several years. She has been teaching at FAU for five years and is currently the coordinator of FAU's Master of Fine Arts degree in painting and ceramics. Her area of specialization is painting with an emphasis on historic methods and materials. Her current work combines silverpoint drawing on large four-feet-by-seven-feet panels combined with ground pigments made into paint. This summer, she will focus on developing new work.

For more information about FAU's Department of Visual Arts and Art History, call 561-297-3870.

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