“When Helga Davis was notified by email in December that she was one of four finalists for the 2019 Greenfield Prize, she thought it was some kind of hoax,” writes Jay Handelman in Sunday’s (2/3) Sarasota Herald-Tribune (FL). “ ‘The subject said you have been nominated and I thought there’s got to be a Nigerian on the other end of this waiting for me to send my social security number,’ … Davis said…. The call came last weekend that she had won the $30,000 commission for a new work and a residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat on [Florida’s] Manasota Key.… Davis, a multidisciplinary artist who works as an actress, singer, writer and composer, admits she didn’t know about the Greenfield Prize … established in 2009…. It rotates annually among playwrights, composers and visual artists…. Each winner is given two years to create a performance or exhibit that will have its first presentation in conjunction with a Sarasota-area arts institution…. Davis may be best known from her work performing in Philip Glass’ … opera ‘Einstein on the Beach.’ … She … hosts the Helga podcast [and] is midway through a year as visiting curator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.”
Posted February 5, 2019
