CIA artists launched careers with coveted Windgate-Lamar awards

Image: Breaking The Glass Goblet: A Reclamation of Venetian Glass, the BFA project of Annie O’Brien ’25, included this table setting. Photo by Leah Trznadel ’19. 

When the Center for Craft announced this year’s cohort of Windgate-Lamar Fellows in May, glass artist Annie O’Brien ’25 was among them. 

That made O’Brien the second Cleveland Institute of Art alum in a row to be honored with the prize, which provides $15,000 in unrestricted funds to help emerging artists make the transition from student to professional. Last year’s class of fellows included ceramicist El Arvizu ’24. 

Since its inception in 2006, the program has awarded $3 million in grants. Windgate-Lamar is highly competitive, drawing the best students from more than 100 colleges and universities across the United States, says Benjamin Johnson, associate professor of Craft + Design at CIA. 

“To have our students receive this recognition consecutively—from such a large pool of high-achieving nominees—is a testament to our comprehensive education in the Craft + 

Design major,” says Johnson. “For our students to be recognized for excellence in their studio practice repeatedly and be leaving CIA with financial support not only helps them but it continues to build a solid network of professional practicing studio artists from the Cleveland Institute of Art.” 

Johnson should know. As a glass artist newly graduated from Kent State University in 2006, he was a member of the inaugural cohort of Windgate-Lamar Fellows—right along with Mark Reigelman, who had just graduated from CIA ready to launch an international career making large-scale art installations in public spaces. Three years later, jewelry and metals artist Elizabeth Staiger ’09 won the fellowship; she says she is still reaping its benefits. 

In addition to its fellowship program, the Center for Craft supports artists in myriad other ways, including awards for teaching, research and internships. In 2010, CIA glass artist Robert Coby ’11 received a $5,000 Windgate Museum Internship stipend for his work at the Cleveland Museum of Art. 

How the fellowship will inform the long-term future for O’Brien and Arvizu is yet to be seen, but already it is allowing them to continue making work and establishing their studio practice, Johnson says. 

“The ability to know you have money to spend on what you have already invested heavily in through your education is a gift that encourages further growth and a sustainable beginning to being an independent working artist,” he says. “Traveling and making work are at the core of both recipients’ goals for this fellowship. I am looking forward to seeing what new work they can achieve through this support that is giving them a competitive advantage at the beginning of their studio careers.” 

With that in mind, we asked CIA artists about the impact of the experience of winning their Windgate-Lamar Fellowships. Here’s what they said. 

Annie O’Brien ’25 

Venetian glass-blowing techniques meld with O’Brien’s performance inclinations in work she says is meant to “rebel against the patriarchy.” 

“Venetian glass is predominantly male and has consistently excluded women from participating in this art form because of its ‘difficulty’ and ‘masculine’ nature,” she explains in a statement for the Center for Craft’s website, where photos of her artwork include high-color images of her posing with the objects. “I am challenging this by creating feminine objects with these techniques, including myself in this contemporary era of glassmaking. I make these objects feminine in form, bright in color, and oversized, and I apply found material to go against the norms of craft.” 

A competitive dancer since age 2, O’Brien says she joined her high school’s four-year art program and “fell in love with the visual and performing arts.” She attended Baldwin Wallace University for two years before transferring to CIA, where she happened into a Glass elective. 

“The wonderful students I met adopted me into their world, along with my professor and studio manager, giving me everything I needed to succeed,” she says. 

O’Brien learned about the Windgate-Lamar through CIA’s Craft + Design curriculum and found encouragement from faculty members. 

“I got a lot of help from my professors at CIA in the application process, as it was a lot of writing and work to complete,” she says. And, she adds, “I would do it all over again with these people by my side.” 

Currently, thanks to the fellowship, she is making new work, applying for residencies and planning a trip to Australia, where she hopes to work with Mel Douglas and other glass artists. She feels grateful for the fellowship, not just for the opportunities it affords her, but because it affirms the dedication she invested into her work during her time at CIA. 

“I would not trade this experience for the world,” O’Brien says, “as it showed me that I am capable of excelling in the glass world.” 

El Arvizu ’24 

For Arvizu, winning the Windgate-Lamar Fellowship was essential in two ways. First, it helped provide much-needed financial support during his first year after college. Second, it funded a monthlong trip to Mexico and paved a path to a deeper understanding of his family’s heritage, which plays a role in his work. 

“I got to give myself an even larger education in Mexican ceramics and about the anthropology of Mexico, which had been neglected by my mother’s education in Mexico and my education here in America,” Arvizu says. “I get to continue my artistic practice without having to be so monetarily insecure at this time, and to cherish the images and experiences I had while I was in Oaxaca, Yucatán, and Rosarito, Mexico for an entire month. I got to see my family, who I hadn’t seen for seven years. It helped confirm that I want to return to stay in Mexico and continue my studies and artistic expression there.” 

The initial push to apply came from Craft + Design faculty member Kathy Buszkiewicz, but Arvizu says he was “prodded out of resistance” by others on faculty as well. “It’s hard arguing with a bunch of folks who know better for you. 

He was also supported by CIA’s Writing + Learning Center, where coordinator Alyssa Perry helped him in developing a concise plan of what he intended to do with the fellowship if he won one. 

“I want to mention Alyssa Perry’s curiosity and enthusiasm to write boldly when expressing oneself in writing,” he notes, “and how to effectively describe ceramics in a general way that helped my audience understand my romanticization of it.” 

Ultimately, putting in the work made sense to Arvizu, because he knew he wanted “to walk away from my undergraduate program with a sense of accomplishment that would help me extend my career as a first-generation artist.” 

These days, Arvizu splits his time between a restaurant job and the art practice that happens “all within the confines of my roommate’s kitchen table — a shared studio space, if you will,” he says. “I don’t have a goal in mind for my art practice currently, since I work full time. I try my best to include myself in things that encourage my love for art education or just keep my hands busy when I’m available to do so.” 

Elizabeth Staiger ’09 

The year that jewelry artist Staiger won her Windgate-Lamar Fellowship, she had planned to visit London for research. The best-laid plans didn’t have a chance against a volcano eruption in Iceland, however, which happened at the very time she was to fly abroad. 

Instead, she took a cross-country trip to attend the Society of North American Goldsmiths Conference and the SOFA Chicago show, and—eventually—made it to London, where she studied at the Victoria and Albert Museum. 

She also bought equipment essential to setting up her own studio. Staiger squeezed every possibility out of her $15,000 award. 

“I’m the type of jeweler and metalsmith who likes to do every single process. So, the ability to purchase equipment quickly really helped me to be able to continue to make work right off the bat,” Staiger says. “It let me buy a whole vacuum casting setup, and a lot of the hammers that I still use all the time were part of that fellowship.” 

These days she uses those tools and more at Byrd & Co., the studio space and retail shop in downtown Wadsworth, Ohio, she opened last year. The space represents the realization of a long-held dream. 

“I own the building, and it’s been about five years’ worth of deconstruction and construction, mainly myself and my father doing the bulk of the work,” she says. “It was like another education. I could plumb under the sink now. I could do drywall, I could do just about anything, which was, for me, part of a dream of having a commercial/residential space.” 

Within the retail space, Staiger sells work by local artists, her parents (who are both artists), CIA alumni, and, of course, herself. She occasionally clears space to make room for workshops as well. 

“Part of what I would like to influence in the community is basically working with your hands and your brain rather than being on your phone,” she says. 

The original push to apply for the fellowship, like it did for Arvizu, came from Buszkiewicz. Then Staiger enlisted “just about everybody” to read and critique her application including other faculty members, her boyfriend and parents. 

“Whoever would read that thing, I would have them make suggestions. That was helpful as a confirmation that my thoughts were clear and that, even down to the timeline and budget, that everything made sense.” 

The results were worth it. 

“It honestly was a really wonderful jumping-off point from having just graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art to getting my own studio sorted out,” she says. “I truly believe it helped me land in this beautiful studio art gallery that I have today. And I am very excited that I actually have been able to get to this point. And as part of it, to help inspire the public along with me to be creative.” 

Mark A. Reigelman II ’06 

Reigelman’s public art installations can be found from downtown Cleveland and Columbus to New York and throughout cities across the United States. He’s been featured in countless magazines and newspapers, won numerous awards and delivered lectures and panel presentations. 

And he gives lots of credit to his 2006 Windgate-Lamar Fellowship, which led to his first big post-college project, Stair Squares (2007)—a series of bright blue boxes that function as little tables for people who tended to sit on the steps of Brooklyn Borough Hall in New York. 

“In the summer before my senior year, I spent a design internship in New York City at Studio Dror and used my free time to observe the city’s dynamic civic interactions, particularly the step-sitting culture,” Reigelman says. “During this time, I drafted initial sketches for Stair Squares. 

“Stair Squares was my first full-scale, legally installed public art project,” he adds. “It was an exciting yet challenging crash course in the complexities of developing, approving and installing public artwork. The fellowship provided me with the opportunity to bring this project to life and played a pivotal role in launching my career in public art.” 

Reigelman adds a “fun fact” to the story. 

“Once Stair Squares was fully developed and prototyped, I began searching for an appropriate staircase to install it,” he says. “After months of emails and phone calls, I made no progress. Then, Christo and Jeanne-Claude were giving a lecture at Severance Hall, which I attended with my Stair Squares project binder. After their inspiring talk, I briefly introduced my project in the signing line. Christo looked at me in shock, possibly due to the speed at which I spoke (I speak very fast when excited), but Jeanne-Claude wrote down their fax number and said, ‘Fax me your project, and we’ll help you find a site.’ 

“A few days later, I was connected to curators at The Met, and within weeks, I secured a site at Brooklyn Borough Hall, a historic building defined by its monumental staircase.” 

In 2015, Reigelman received another Windgate award—a project grant this time. He used it to create his mobile public art project, Smökers, which recently was exhibited in the Brooklyn Museum. 

Benjamin Johnson, Faculty 

In addition to his work on faculty in CIA’s Craft + Design department, Johnson pursues a studio glass career that he says investigates texture and pattern in blown glass “to explore life experiences, micro- and macro-curiosities, and visualize textures related to computer coding, textiles and rhythms in nature.” 

The Windgate-Lamar Fellowship helped him establish a professional foundation for that work. After graduating from Kent State, Johnson continued his education through a summer workshop at Pilchuck Glass School near Seattle. The award money helped him fund application fees, shipping and booth fees to exhibit his work at juried art shows, craft shows and invitational exhibitions. 

“The financial support allowed me to establish my own craft business making and traveling to various states to sell my work at craft shows and exhibitions,” he says. “The fellowship allowed me to jumpstart my craft career by allowing me to invest in the tools and supplies necessary to establish a viable craft business. This investment is still allowing me to make glass work today, and when I am blowing glass, I am still working with tools I purchased through the fellowship.”