Artfully done: Three graduating seniors are winners of CCA awards

The Cornell Council on the Arts has named three graduating seniors as 2001-02 Student Art Award recipients: Albert Pulido, English, and Scott Pitek, architecture, each will receive $1,000 at the CCA's annual awards ceremony in the fall. Erin Bullock, landscape architecture, will be presented with a CCA certificate of recognition during this year's commencement events.

In addition, the CCA announced that Melissa Burchett, a senior in apparel design, is the recipient of the 2001-02 Edward M. Murray Committee on the Arts Scholarship.

Pulido drew praise from creative writing faculty for both his fiction and his commitment to the undergraduate writing community in general.

"Albert Pulido is the most dedicated undergraduate fiction writer I have encountered in the past 10 years and is a productive and serious artist who has the ability to make a career in fiction," wrote English Professor Stephanie Vaughn in her CCA recommendation. "He always has been a collegial and active member of the writing community at Cornell and is one of the organizing forces behind the new Temple of Zeus "open-mike reading program."

Pitek likewise impressed both faculty and fellow students in the College of Architecture, Art and Planning for his "inquisitiveness, talent and boundless energy."

Writes Felecia Davis, assistant professor of architecture: "Scott is not only a very good architectural designer who is truly interested in testing the boundaries between architecture and art, but he is also an unselfish person who has done a lot for student life, in and outside of the department. He has been a very positive and down-to-earth influence on his colleagues and faculty. ..."

Bullock's work as both artist and student so impressed the CCA review committee that she will receive a special certificate of recognition during commencement. In March, Bullock received a national American Society of Landscape Architects Award of Honor. Each year the society honors outstanding students based on the entirety of their academic and studio work. In spring 2001, the CCA awarded Bullock an Individual Project Grant for a photography installation, "The Real Down-Under: The Cultural Landscape of Australia," based on her experience as a Cornell Abroad student in Sydney in the fall of 2001.

Burchett has participated each year in the Cornell Design League Show and developed interests in world dress and traditional textile design and production during her student career. During spring 2002, she conducted an independent research project in Nepal on Nepali traditional textiles. She is interested in applying traditional textile designs to sportswear and hopes to work for an environmentally sensitive apparel company where she can apply her skills to outdoor and athletic wear.

The CCA was founded in 1947 to help make the arts a part of campus life and artistic and creative thinking an integral part of a Cornell education. CCA staff and committee members work with various departments and colleges in sponsoring artistic and multicultural events.