Policy Changes
2002 has brought about many changes for the Alberta duPont Bonsal Foundation. We have updated and expanded our website and invite you to browse and offer feedback. Our mission statement has also been adjusted to reflect our changing goals as a young, growing not-for-profit institution. During its first two years, the foundation kept the two disciplines that it supports, visual arts and poetry, relatively separate. It is our aim to increasingly unite the two in order to create a healthy cross-fertilization of ideas. To initiate this new approach, the foundation plans to sponsor an event in San Diego this fall that will bring together this yearÕs award winners in both poetry and visual art. More information on this will be provided as planning progresses.

Poetry News
The Alberta duPont Bonsal Foundation is pleased to announce the 2002 Alberta Prize winner for Poetry, Tina Brown Celona. Celona is of American and Vietnamese descent and has lived all over the world, including Tokyo, Paris, Kuala Lumpur and Washington, D.C. She completed her education at Brown University and the WriterÕs Workshop at the University of Iowa. Tina has published in Explosive and Epoch magazines and has published a chapbook, Songs & Scores, with Spectacular Books. She lives in East Hampton, NY. The foundation extends hearty congratulations to Tina and will soon announce the title of her forthcoming manuscript that will be published in November 2002. Tina will be the second recipient of an Alberta Prize for Poetry. Chelsea Minnis won the award in 2001 which enabled the publication of a collection of her work, Zirconia.

Art News
The Alberta duPont Bonsal Foundation has awarded the Alberta Prize for Visual Art for the past two years. In 2000, three artists won cash prizes and had their work gifted to various institutions. San Diego based painter/installation artist Jean Lowe's work entered the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego as did a piece by Los Angeles sculptor Jacci Den Hartog. Baltimore quilt maker Elizabeth Talford Scott saw a tapestry of hers enter the collection of the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington, Delaware. All three women have continued to their artistic investigations, and Jean Lowe, in particular, has recently received further national recognition. Lowe is the subject of an artist profile in the May 2002 issue of Art & Antiques magazine. A single award was given in 2001 to installation artist 1collection.htm, whose work appeared in the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego and is now in the museum's permanent collection. The piece was well received, and museum trustee and docent Mary Bear remarked that "it was the best piece we had in the museum."

Fundraising
The establishment and continued success of the Alberta duPont Bonsal Foundation has been made possible through the funding and hard work of its founders: Alicia Archer, Frank Bonsal, Alexandra Carbone, Alfred Gardner, Jane Lunger, Daniel and Alison Thompson, Gough Thompson, Gurney and Joanne Thompson, Lydia Thompson, Tom Thompson and Melissa Whitehouse. Together the founders provided initial funding of over $150,000 to establish the foundation and fund its prizes for 2000, 2001, and 2002. Each year the foundation requires $50,000 to award prizes to emerging women artists and poets. In addition to meeting this need, the foundation aims to establish an endowment of $1,000,000 to ensure its future success. Our immediate goal is to broaden our support base to ensure annual contributions of varying amounts that total $50,000. Any excess funds raised will go towards the endowment. For more information about donations, click here.

Other Business
Discussions are continuing concerning future collaborations between the foundation and other art museums. Following in the footsteps of other successful partnerships with the Delaware Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego, the foundation is seeking to broaden the means through which the work of important, contemporary women artists can reach the public eye. This project has the potential to introduce affiliates of the foundation to an entirely new pool of artists, while increasing national awareness of the foundation and its mission. We appreciate the support of these institutions and the difference that their help makes in enhancing the careers of emerging female artists.