DeCordova Announces the Fifth Annual Rappaport Prize Winner: Debra Olin

The Rappaport Prize is an annual award made possible by funding from the Jerome Lyle Rappaport Charitable Foundation, and administered by DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, to an individual artist in recognition of his or her significant achievement and creative potential.

LINCOLN, MA-DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park and the Jerome Lyle Rappaport Charitable Foundation are proud to announce this year's recipient of the largest public annual award to an individual artist in New England, The Rappaport Prize. The $20,000 one-year stipend will be awarded to Debra Olin-a 53-year-old Somerville, Massachusetts-based printmaker. Olin's work explores her own heritage while making connections between disparate cultures, searching for links through history, rituals, and folklore. Olin's monoprints have appeared at DeCordova in the 1997 Artists/Visions exhibition and in the Corporate Art Loan Program. The prize will be awarded at the Museum's Annual Fall Meeting of Trustees and Overseers on Tuesday, September 28, 2004.

About Debra Olin

Debra Olin focuses on bodily coverings as containers for meaning. In both her two-dimensional prints and three-dimensional printed constructions, Olin creates garments, or images of garments, adorned with text, found objects, and images from the natural world and of her Jewish cultural heritage-notably Yiddish literature, poetry, and folklore. These elements gird the body and make reference to what the artist considers to be the constructive elements of identity, nature, religion, family, memory, ritual, history, self-perception, and morality. Olin's work, taken as a whole, can also be considered as an autobiographical narrative, a revelation of self broken down into its constituent parts while bound together within the framework of apparel.

The artist suggests that identity is as fluid and multifaceted as the clothing we change each day. She explains in her artist statement: "I have come to think of clothing as an extension of the body. The coat becomes a thick hide, a shelter, a vantage point from which to safely view the world and one's relationship to it. The slip holds the skin, delicate and vulnerable. Under this covering are revealed the mysteries that live inside us. This work explores that inner life with an emphasis on hope and healing."

Born in Trenton, NJ, Debra Olin received a BA from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, and an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art, Boston. She currently lives and works in Somerville. Olin has shown in solo exhibitions at the Perkins Gallery, Striar Jewish Community Center, Stoughton, MA; Hampshire College, Amherst, MA; the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston; the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut, Storrs; the Starr Gallery, Levanthal-Sidman Jewish Community Center, Newton, MA; and the Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA. Her group show participation includes such institutions as the Jewish Museum of Maryland, Baltimore; Galería Espacio Abierto, Havana, Cuba; the Ellis Island Immigration Museum, New York, NY; the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge; the Tisch Gallery, Tufts University, Medford, MA; the Somerville Museum and Brickbottom Gallery, Somerville, MA; Higgins Art Gallery, Cape Cod Community College, Barnstable, MA; and the New Art Center, Newton, MA.

About the Jerome Lyle Rappaport Charitable Foundation and Prize

The Rappaport Prize was established by the Jerome Lyle Rappaport Charitable Foundation to foster two goals: (1) to recognize both the achievement and potential of an artist who has already demonstrated significant creativity and vision, and (2) to encourage the artist to continue in a career of art making despite the ever present challenges which such a choice confronts. Choosing a career in the visual arts today requires courage and sacrifice-courage in the sense that there are few guarantees of success in the arts, and even if "success" (however it is measured in the visual arts) is obtained, it cannot always ensure a livelihood. Sacrifice is also a requisite for the artist to remain committed to the long-term process of developing truly creative new work.

The Rappaport Prize is administered by DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park and conforms to the Jerome Lyle Rappaport Charitable Foundation's mission to encourage leadership in specific sectors of the community. DeCordova has attained a significant leadership position as the largest, most dynamic museum of contemporary American art in New England and serves as a national model for institutional involvement within the community.

There is no formal application process. The selection of the Rappaport Prize artist recipient is made by DeCordova's Director and Curatorial staff. A Jerome Lyle Rappaport Charitable Foundation Trustee may also assist in the selection process in an advisory capacity.

The only condition of acceptance by the artist is that DeCordova receive a work of art by the Rappaport Prize recipient. This acquisition will be added to the Museum's Permanent Collection, which comprises 2,500 artworks largely by New England artists. The acquisition will further serve to enhance the artist's career profile and the mutually beneficial artist/museum relationship. Selection of the work will be negotiated with the Museum's curators and is subject to DeCordova's formal process of acquisition. Accession of the work of art will carry the credit of the Jerome Lyle Rappaport Charitable Foundation, which makes the acquisition possible through the establishment of the Prize and its stipend to the artist.

The previous recipients of the Rappaport Prize are new media artist Jennifer Hall (2000), installation artist Annee Spileos Scott (2001), sculptor/photographer Lars-Erik Fisk (2002), and sculptor/installation artist John Bisbee (2003).

About DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park

DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park is a museum of modern and contemporary American art with a particular emphasis on the work of New England artists. It features the only public sculpture park of its kind in New England and the largest non-degree granting studio art program in the state. DeCordova opened in 1950 on the former estate of Julian de Cordova, a Boston entrepreneur and supporter of the arts.

DeCordova Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 am to 5 pm and on selected Monday holidays. As of September 18, 2004: General admission during Museum hours is $9 for adults, $6 for senior citizens, students, and youth ages 6-12. Children age 5 and under, Lincoln residents, and Active Duty Military Personnel and their dependents are admitted free. The Sculpture Park is open year round during daylight hours. The Store @ DeCordova and the School Gallery are open Monday through Thursday, 9:30 am to 7:30 pm, Friday through Saturday, 9:30 am to 5:30 pm, and Sunday 11:30 am to 5:30 pm. The Café @ DeCordova is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 am to 3 pm. Free guided public tours of the Museum's main galleries take place every Thursday at 1 and Sunday at 2 pm. Free tours of the Sculpture Park are given on Saturday and Sunday at 1 pm from May to October. Visit www.decordova.org or call 781/259-8355 for further information.

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