Two art professors receive ASC grants

Heather Freeman, associate professor of digital media, and Marek Ranis, assistant professor of sculpture, will receive 2015 Regional Artist Project grants from the Arts & Science Council (ASC).

Each year, the ASC, in conjunction with arts councils in Cabarrus, Cleveland, Gaston, Iredell, Rowan, Rutherford and York (S.C.) counties, and with the support of the North Carolina Arts Council and Blumenthal Endowment, awards project grants to artists of varied disciplines throughout the greater Charlotte region. This year, 31 artists will receive grants ranging from $695 to $2,000. The grantees were selected from 117 applicants.

Freeman’s $2,000 grant will fund the purchase of a fifth-generation Makerbot Replicator to 3D print stop-motion puppets for a series of animations called “Terra Firma,” beginning with the short “Artemis.”

Ranis will use a $2,000 grant to rent studio space to continue to work on the project “Arctic Utopia,” which is an ongoing artistic investigation into how climate change influences humanity. It addresses the complex social and political consequences of this transformation.