87R25288 JGH-D

By: King of Hemphill H.R. No. 1220

R E S O L U T I O N

WHEREAS, The Texas Commission on the Arts has announced the 2021 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, Cyrus Cassells, the 2021 State Poet Laureate, is the author of eight volumes of poetry, including The Gospel According to Wild Indigo, which was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award and the Balcones Prize, as well as More Than Watchmen at Daybreak and the forthcoming The World That the Shooter Left Us; his translation of Still Life with Children: Selected Poems of Francesc Parcerisas won the Soeurette Diehl Fraser Award from the Texas Institute of Letters, and his other honors include a Lambda Literary Award, a Lannan Literary Award, two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Pushcart Prize, and a William Carlos Williams Award; moreover, he was named a National Poetry Series winner; he is a professor of English at Texas State University; and

WHEREAS, The 2021 Texas State Musician is Leon Bridges, whose first album, Coming Home, debuted at number six on the Billboard charts in 2015 and went on to be certified as a gold record; his critically acclaimed second album, Good Thing, was released in May 2018; he has written and performed songs with such artists as Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, Nick Waterhouse, Kacey Musgraves, Lecrae, and Gary Clark Jr., and he has performed at the White House, the Library of Congress, and other venues around the world; a four-time Grammy nominee, he won for Best Traditional R&B Performance for his song "Bet Ain't Worth the Hand"; and

WHEREAS, The unique work of Annette Lawrence, the 2021 State Two-Dimensional Artist, turns the ordinary data of everyday life into drawings, objects, and installations, and her pieces are included in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Rachofsky Collection, Artpace San Antonio, and the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, among others; her work appeared in the 1997 Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and she is the recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship, the Moss/Chumley Award from the Meadows Museum, and the Otis and Velma Davis Dozier Travel Grant from the Dallas Museum of Art; she recently retired as a professor of studio art at the University of North Texas, and in August 2021, she will begin a visiting faculty position at Bennington College in Vermont; and

WHEREAS, Jennifer Ling Datchuk, the 2021 State Three-Dimensional Artist, was born in Ohio and raised in Brooklyn; trained in ceramics, she utilizes materials often associated with traditional women's work, such as porcelain, hair, and textiles; she earned her bachelor of fine arts degree at Kent State University and her master of fine arts degree from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and she has participated in residencies in Germany, China, the Netherlands, and San Antonio; she received the 2017 Emerging Voices Award from the American Craft Council and was named a United States Artists Fellow in Craft in 2020; she is an assistant professor of art at Texas State University and maintains a studio in San Antonio; 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 87th Texas Legislature hereby congratulate the 2021 Texas Commission on the Arts honorees and extend to them sincere best wishes for continued fulfillment in their creative endeavors.