Preserving Artistic Vitality:
Fine Arts Work Center Announces 2025 Distinguished Service in the Arts Award Recipients
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The Fine Arts Work Center is proud to announce that Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jayne Anne Phillips, multidisciplinary artist Jack Pierson, and visionary arts patrons Steve Corkin and Dan Maddalena will receive the 2025 Distinguished Service in the Arts Award at the annual Summer Awards Celebration on Saturday, July 12th.
Established in 1977, the Distinguished Service in the Arts Award honors creative innovators whose work breathes life into contemporary arts, literature, and philanthropy. This year’s celebration, themed “Preserving Artistic Vitality,” recognizes individuals who embody the dynamic relationship between artists and Provincetown—a place that has nurtured creative freedom for over a century.
“To preserve artistic vitality, we must nurture both the creators and the conditions that make creativity possible,” said Sharon Polli, Executive Director of the Fine Arts Work Center. “Each of our honorees has played a vital role in sustaining the creative pulse that defines Provincetown’s artistic legacy, while simultaneously pushing boundaries that inspire future generations.”
Phillips, Pierson, and Corkin and Maddalena each represent essential threads in the fabric of artistic preservation. Phillips, a 1979-1980 Writing Fellow at the Work Center, was nurtured as an emerging writer in Provincetown before going on to achieve numerous awards and honors, including the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Pierson, whose groundbreaking visual work spans photography, drawing, painting, and sculptural word pieces, was a 1993-1994 Visual Arts Fellow and continues to serve on the Board of Trustees. Corkin and Maddalena have dedicated themselves to championing emerging voices, embodying the support necessary for artistic vitality to flourish.
The Fine Arts Work Center was established in 1968 by a collective of forward-thinking artists and writers who recognized that artistic freedom requires both physical space and a supportive community. For nearly six decades, the Work Center has provided the essential conditions—time, space, financial support, and creative connection—that allow emerging artists to develop ambitious work that shapes our cultural landscape.
About the Honorees:
Jayne Anne Phillips is the author of six novels, including Night Watch, Quiet Dell, Lark And Termite, MotherKind, Shelter, and Machine Dreams, and two widely anthologized story collections, Fast Lanes, and Black Tickets. Night Watch was awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and Longlisted for the National Book Award; Quiet Dell was a Wall Street Journal and Kirkus Review Best Fiction selection. Lark And Termite, winner of the Heartland Prize, was a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Prix de Medici Etranger.
Jack Pierson works in several mediums, including sculpture, photography, and video, and is known for word signage installations, drawings, and artist’s books. He explores the emotional undercurrents of everyday life, from the intimacy of romantic attachment to the distant idolization of others. In his well-known appropriation of vintage texts, Pierson references traditional American motifs (roadside ephemera, small town stores) and thus a lost era of cultural symbolism; his resulting word sculptures are imbued with both nostalgia and disillusionment. Informed in part by his artistic emergence in the era of AIDS, Pierson’s work is moored by melancholy and introspection, yet his images are often buoyed by a celebratory aura of seduction and glamour.
Steve Corkin and Dan Maddalena are collectors, lovers, and patrons of the arts. Coming from diverse backgrounds, Corkin in real estate and Maddalena in ballet and film, the two share a passion for contemporary art and its intersection with civic life. As collectors, they focus on young, emerging and mid-career artists, particularly those that have historically been overlooked by the art world. They support artists and arts organizations with their time, expertise, financial resources, and gifts of art.
The 2025 Summer Awards Celebration will bring together more than 300 supporters at the iconic Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum. Set against breathtaking harbor views, the evening will be emceed by Matt Dunphy and feature music by DJ Chris Roxx (official DJ of the New England Patriots); along with seasonal cuisine reflective of Cape Cod’s bounty prepared by MAX Ultimate Food. Each ticket directly supports the Work Center’s mission to provide emerging artists and writers with the foundation for creative transformation: studio spaces, living accommodations, financial support, and a community of peers.
“Future innovation requires protecting artistic freedom and fostering creative connections,” said Lynne Kortenhaus, Board President for the Fine Arts Work Center Trustees. “By honoring these exceptional individuals, we celebrate not just their achievements, but the ongoing vitality of an artistic ecosystem that continues to shape American culture.”
Supporting the Work Center Nurtures Artistic Freedom for the Next Generation
For nearly 60 years, the Fine Arts Work Center has provided time and space to emerging artists and writers at crucial stages of creative development. Your attendance helps us continue this essential work while maintaining Provincetown’s vital importance to American arts. Each contribution directly supports our renowned Fellowship program, studio spaces, and living accommodations for creative practitioners, as well as community programming that connects Provincetown to the world.
About The Fine Arts Work Center
The Fine Arts Work Center is an artist-led organization based in Provincetown and connected to the world. We support artistic freedom, nurture creative connections, and make possible artistic achievements important to the larger culture.
