Art professor awarded six-month Fulbright fellowship

NEW PALTZ — Clifton Meador, professor of art at the State University of New York at New Paltz, has been awarded a six-month Fulbright fellowship. Meador will be a visiting artist at the State Academy of Art in Tblisi, Republic of Georgia. He will work with advanced students and photograph the vineyards of eastern Georgia, where he plans to document wine-growing customs.

From August to January, Meador, one of 12 SUNY professors within the last 20 years to receive a Fulbright grant, will be the artist-in-residence in Georgia, which is believed to be the original home of wine growing, dating back at least six thousand years. The country is bounded by Russian federation from North, and Armenia and Turkey from the South.

“Dr. Meador’s selection for this award is a wonderful testament both to his own significance as a scholar and the academic quality of the college,” said Steven G. Poskanzer, president of SUNY New Paltz. “In an era where international scholarship is increasingly visible and valuable, New Paltz’ proud and growing list of Fulbright awardees demonstrates the importance of academic research conducted by our faculty.”

Meador joined the faculty at New Paltz in 1994 and teaches courses in graphic design, photography and the photography/graphic design collaborative MFA program in the Visual Research Laboratory. He is active as a book artist, creating works that combine his writing, photography and design. Notable among his more than 30 publications are his last two books — Memory Lapse (Nexus Press, 1999) and Whisky Defense (Nexus Press, 2001).

Professor Meador has twice been the recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship in Printmaking/Drawing/Artists Books. His work has also been supported by grants from the New York Council for the Arts, the Georgia Council for the Arts and numerous other state and local agencies. He was an Artist-in-Residence at the Glasgow School of Art in the spring of 1999 and has twice been a resident artist at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York. He has exhibited widely and his work is held in collections all over the world, including the Library of the Museum of Modern Art.

He received his Master of Fine Arts from Purchase College, where he also taught and worked at the Center for Editions, a production facility for artists books, before coming to SUNY New Paltz. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Established in 1946 under legislation introduced by the late Sen. J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the program’s purpose is to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries.

Since the program’s inception, more than 250,000 participants — chosen for their leadership potential — have had the opportunity to observe each other’s political, economic and cultural institutions. The program awards approximately 4,500 new grants annually.

The 12 SUNY New Paltz professors who have been awarded Fulbright grants are: Clifton Meador (Art) Republic of Georgia; Victor de Munck (Anthropology) Lithuania; Lee A. Bell (Educational Studies) Mexico; Robert Miraldi (Communication and Media) Netherlands; Jerry Benjamin (Dean/Liberal Arts and Sciences) Japan; Harry R. Stoneback (English) China; Francis Xavier Paz (English) Syria; Gerald Sorin (History) Netherlands; Beatrice F. Conover (English as a Second Language) Mexico; Maria Susan Palmera (English as a Second Language) Turkey; Lorraine G. Farina (English) Italy; Aaron M. Bindman (Sociology) Yugoslavia.

There are approximately 800 U.S. faculty and professionals who will travel abroad to 140 countries for the 2002-2003 academic year through the Fulbright Scholar Program.