Rosebud women win scholarships

Laureen F. Guenther
Times Contributor

 

Artist Grace Malmberg, who grew up in Redland and studied at Rosebud School of the Arts, has won the Hope and Ian Cook Sr. Travel Scholarship through Red Deer College (RDC).
Ian Cook Jr., who founded and teaches in RDC’s Visual Art program, created the scholarship in honour of his parents.
“He’s such an amazing man,” Malmberg says. “I’m unbelievably honoured to win this scholarship. The idea of these scholarships is to get students out of their hometown, even out of the country and have them see art. It’s a completely different experience to see (art) as opposed to just learning about it.”
When she heard she’d won, “I was over the moon!” Malmberg says. “Without even thinking about it,” she said she’d go to Berlin, because of its “architecture and the history and the (Berlin) Wall. And it has amazing museums.”
Many students talk about traveling, and a travel scholarship encourages them to actually do it, she says. Receiving the $1,780 scholarship is “like someone hands you a plane ticket and says, here, go to Germany.”
Now majoring in painting and ceramics at RDC, Malmberg is also president of the college’s Visual Arts Society, vice-president of the Ceramics Club, and creator of her own line of jewellery. After graduating with her Diploma of Visual Art in spring 2015, she’ll travel to Germany, to enjoy all the art that Berlin and surrounding cities have to offer. See some of her art at fragariafields.blogspot.com.
Lennette Randall, a four-year graduate of Rosebud School of the Arts (RSA), has also won a significant scholarship – the Stephen Hair Emerging Artist Award, donated by veteran actor Stephen Hair and facilitated by Theatre Calgary. The award is designated for career development and is given to a recent graduate of post-secondary studies in acting, who’s committed to a professional acting career.
Since graduating from RSA two years ago, Randall has acted in numerous shows in Calgary and Rosebud – including Count of Monte Cristo, Hairspray, Land of the Dead, New Canadian Kid, Romeo and Juliet, and Doubt. Despite her experience, she was anything but confident she’d win the award.
“I’ve seen some pretty incredible people get it,” she says.
When she heard she’d won, she had the additional honour of meeting Stephen Hair himself.
“He’s such a calm guy, and very open,” she says, “and perfectly willing to offer himself as a mentor.”
Randall will use the $2,500 award to sharpen her skills at a month-long intensive course at Shakespeare Company in Lennox, Mass.
“I’m very grateful to God, grateful to Theatre Calgary, and to Stephen Hair for the award,” she says. “As much as I would have loved to go to Lennox, I don’t think I would have made it, if I did not have that from them.”
In spring, watch for Randall to perform in Rosebud Theatre’s The Miracle Worker, and with Ellipses Tree Collective in Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God.