84R23637 RMA-D
 
  By: Guillen H.R. No. 2457
 
 
 
R E S O L U T I O N
         WHEREAS, The Texas Commission on the Arts has announced
  the 2016 appointments for the positions of State Poet Laureate,
  State Musician, State Two-Dimensional Artist, and State
  Three-Dimensional Artist; and
         WHEREAS, The state's highest accolade for excellence in the
  arts, designation as a Texas State Artist is conferred on those
  individuals who represent the best of our rich and diverse artistic
  community and who inspire others through their unique creative
  expression; and
         WHEREAS, San Antonio native Laurie Ann Guerrero has been
  named the 2016 State Poet Laureate; while an undergraduate at Smith
  College, she received the prestigious Academy of American Poets
  Prize, and her first full-length collection of poems, A Tongue in
  the Mouth of the Dying, was selected for the 2012 Andrés Montoya
  Poetry Prize and an International Latino Book Award and was chosen
  as one of 14 must-read works of Chicano literature by Rigoberto
  González; she has also been recognized with the Panhandler Chapbook
  Award and with grants from the Artist Foundation of San Antonio and
  the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation, and she was appointed
  poet laureate of San Antonio by Mayor Julian Castro in 2014; her
  latest book, A Crown for Gumecindo, was released by Aztlan Libre
  Press in April 2015; and
         WHEREAS, The 2016 State Musician is Joe Ely, an Americana
  music pioneer whose songs are infused with a mixture of rock,
  country, blues, and folk influences; over the course of his
  four-decade career, he has performed thousands of shows worldwide
  and has been honored with a Grammy Award, a Country Music
  Association Award, and the Americana Music Association's Lifetime
  Achievement Award for Performance; he has further distinguished
  himself through his collaboration in the country supergroup The
  Flatlanders, which includes fellow songwriters Jimmie Dale Gilmore
  and Butch Hancock; and
         WHEREAS, Dornith Doherty has been selected as the 2016 State
  Two-Dimensional Artist; born in Houston, she has produced an
  impressive body of work that has been exhibited and collected
  across the globe, and she is widely known for her examinations of
  the relationship between the natural environment and human agency;
  moreover, she was named a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
  Fellow in 2012 and has received grants from the Fulbright Program,
  the Japan Foundation, the Society for Contemporary Photography, the
  Indiana Arts Commission, and the U.S. Department of the Interior;
  today, she serves as the Distinguished Research Professor of Art at
  the University of North Texas; and
         WHEREAS, Named the 2016 State Three-Dimensional Artist,
  Dario Robleto is an Artist Research Fellow at Rice University; he
  uses esoteric materials and processes to create sculptures, prints,
  and installations that investigate unexplored corners of history,
  art, and science; since 1997, his work has been featured in more
  than 30 solo exhibitions, the most recent of which were held at the
  Menil Collection and Inman Gallery in Houston and at the Baltimore
  Museum of Art, and he was awarded the 2011 Smithsonian Artist
  Research Fellowship, the 2009 USA Rasmuson Fellowship, and the 2007
  Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant; and
         WHEREAS, The artists who have been selected to hold these
  prestigious posts have all greatly contributed to the vibrant
  cultural life of the Lone Star State, and Texas is indeed fortunate
  to be home to these talented individuals; now, therefore, be it
         RESOLVED, That the House of Representatives of the 84th Texas
  Legislature hereby congratulate the 2016 Texas Commission on the
  Arts honorees and extend to them sincere best wishes for continued
  fulfillment in their creative endeavors.