Dispatch from Kyle Sherard:

Grant awards for the National Endowment for the Arts’ 2013 fiscal year were announced on Tuesday evening. Among the recipients, specifically the “Art Works I” awards, was Asheville painter and muralist Ian Wilkinson.

The following text is seeded from the NEA website:

Colorado

Adams State College
Alamosa, CO
$10,000
Category: Access to Artistic Excellence
Field/Discipline: Challenge America

To support the San Luis Valley Museum Mural Project. Led by artist Ian Wilkinson, the mural design will be created through an extensive community engagement process focused on two city youth groups and will be conducted in partnership with the San Luis Valley Museum, where the mural will be installed on an exterior wall.

http://www.arts.gov/grants/recent/13grants/states1/13_states1.php?STATE=CO

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Wilkinson graduated from Adams State University in 2004, and has been an active muralist since attending Virginia Common Wealth in the early 2000s. In 2008 Wilkinson and his family moved to Asheville from Santa Fe, NM. He soon jumped into the Asheville mural circuit after meeting and joining forces with Molly Must, the previous program director of the Asheville Mural Project and the artistic and organizational leader of the Lexington Gateway Mural. As of late, the duo has been working on a multi-panel historically-focused mural in the park located on Market Street.

Wilkinson currently serves as AMP’s director and as an arts educator with Teaching Artist Presenting in Asheville Schools. He and Asheville ceramicist Alex Irvine were awarded an NC Arts Council grant earlier this year for a large-scale mural project at West Asheville’s Hall Fletcher Elementary School.

Read more about another Wilkinson project here: http://www.mountainx.com/article/46218/State-of-the-Arts