Published January 17, 2018
Janis Carr

Professor Tony MarshTony Marsh, renowned ceramicist and professor at Cal State Long Beach, was named a 2018 USA Fellows, a group of artists and collectives from across nine creative disciplines. He will receive an unrestricted $50,000 cash award.

The Fellowships honored 45 artists, who come from a broad cross section of American arts and letters in Architecture & Design, Craft, Dance, Media, Music, Theater & Performance, Traditional Arts, Visual Art and Writing. Marsh was among three honored in Craft.

Marsh has focused on the non-utilitarian ceramic vessel for the past 30 years. His work can be found in more than 30 public permanent Museum collections around the world.

He currently is on the faculty and the first Director for the Center for Contemporary Ceramics, a newly formed center on campus connected to the Ceramic Arts Program.

For the past three years, Marsh and Chris Miles, head of the ceramics program, have taken students on a summer trip to Italy as part of the Study Abroad program so they can expand their art horizons. The international travel program has been active for 25-plus years, and in that time have sent more than over 250 ceramics majors to over 20 countries.

USA’s 2018 Fellows were selected by a panel of experts in each discipline then approved by the organization’s board. They were drawn from a peer-nominated pool of more than 500 applicants. This year’s Fellows come from Alaska and Puerto Rico, from New Mexico and Maine, and everywhere in between. Among their number are luminaries in their fields and rising stars, emerging voices and long-heralded experts.

Among past awardees are film director and writer Miranda July, composer David Lang, novelist Annie Proulx, playwright David Henry Hwang, choreographer Bill T. Jones and visual artist Kara Walker.