This week, Mill Valley resident photographer Ben Nixon was recognized as the second recipient of the Visual Artists Support Program Grant. The $25,000 grant, which was established in honor of Marin photographer Pirkle Jones, who died in 2009, supports promising emerging and mid-career artists living in Marin County. Mr. Nixon said he will continue his work on a series of wet-plate collodion landscapes that he has been developing since 2008. “I feel that my work has been validated…by receiving this prestigious grant from the Pirkle Jones Foundation, and this gives me great courage to continue on,” he said.