In 2000, the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts established a new honor to complement its venerable Artist of the Year award.

The Emerging Artist of the Year exhibition award was created, under the curatorial leadership of Vicky A. Clark, to support and encourage up-and-coming artists.

"Artist" is not an easy career path to pursue, especially during an economic downturn, but this select group is persevering. Here's an update on how the awardees are faring 10 years later:

2001: Richard Paul Gribenas, a 24-year-old sound-installation and performance artist and 1999 graduate of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, was the inaugural Emerging Artist of the Year. Gribenas performed and exhibited internationally in the museum and punk music worlds, and his work was reviewed in prominent art periodicals. Sadly, he died on March 17 at age 31 after a protracted battle with Hodgkin's lymphoma.

2002: Jeremy Boyle collaborated in recent years with Gribenas in performances at venues ranging from the Art Institute Museum in Chicago to New York's Cakeshop. A recipient of Sprout Fund Seed Awards in 2005 and 2006, he also collaborated with Gerard Damiani on the 2005 Strawberry Way Public Art Commission Downtown. A Carnegie Mellon University adjunct faculty member in 2003-05, Boyle was last tracked to the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he was an assistant professor in 2006-07. Last year, he exhibited at Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia, and was given a solo show by Hudson Franklin Gallery, New York.

2003: George Magalios is painting, photographing, writing criticism and philosophizing in West Palm Beach, Fla., where he directs George Magalios Studios and creates installations under the pseudonym Georges Ducharme. He's the founder and president of The Sophia Group, a corporation devoted to ethical fusions of art and technology.

2004: Adam Sipe completed an MFA at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., in 2006, lives in New York City and has a studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn. He's exhibited most recently in alternative spaces. He's working on a project with clothing designer Arati Rao, painting on silk to create unique pieces for the clothing line Ayes. In February, he and Rao travel to India for six months to research dyes and "to meet the worms who make the silk."

2005: Hilary Shames has taken a break from teaching -- most recently at Carlow University and Community College of Allegheny County -- to spend time with her family, including two teenagers, at home in Ambridge. She's also completing a large artwork for the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh 2010 centennial year that expands a 360-degree video of a site in the woods into 16 painted canvases.

2006: Kim Beck is an associate professor with the School of Art, Carnegie Mellon University. The 2008 Pittsburgh Center for the Arts Biennial was among numerous solo and group exhibitions that she's participated in. Last year she was included in "Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes" which debuted at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and traveled to Carnegie Museum of Art and Yale School of Architecture. Beck received the 2009 Prix Ars Electronica, Award of Distinction in Interactive Arts, Linz, Austria, and was awarded residencies in 2008 at Yaddo, Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and in 2008-09 at The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation and the Socrates Sculpture Park, both in New York. Upcoming is a group exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and a solo project on the High Line in Chelsea, New York.

2007: Adam Grossi was awarded a University Fellowship to attend the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he completed a MFA in the spring. He most recently exhibited in "In That Gold Land" at Heaven Gallery, Chicago. Grossi is developing his studio practice, concentrating on drawing and painting.

2008: Adam Welch is curator for the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and Pittsburgh Filmmakers. A solo exhibition of his artwork, "A Few Objects -- On a Theme of Contradiction," opens Jan. 8 at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's Gallery 709, and an exhibition he's curated, "Cluster," opens Feb. 5 at the PCA.

2009: Dylan Vitone is assistant professor with the School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University. His "Miami Project," which wowed visitors to his fall EAOY exhibition, is traveling to the DNJ Gallery in Los Angeles next year. Vitone has just completed a commission for the Heinz Endowments to document Downtown Pittsburgh, and he is planning his next project, at Yellowstone National Park.

2010: Gregory Witt was recently named EAOY and the vitality of this series promises to continue. A Lower Lawrenceville resident, Witt, who received a MFA from Carnegie Mellon University in May, has a studio in North Oakland. A fellow at the Fred Rogers Center, he recently exhibited at Coleman Burke Gallery, Portland, Maine, and has work in "Frenemies: The Creative Comradery of Cleveland and Pittsburgh" at the Front Room in Cleveland.

At decade's end, the success of the Emerging Artist of the Year awards seems evident, and a worthy addition to the prestigious Artist of the Year series.

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