Visual Arts Fellowships

Visual Arts Fellowships

The Wyoming Arts Council is now accepting applications for the Visual Arts Fellowships. Applications must be submitted online through CaFE. The deadline to apply to the fellowships is June 4, 2018.

WHAT IS A VISUAL ARTS FELLOWSHIP?

Visual Arts Fellowships are awards of merit, based on the artist’s portfolio, honoring the work of Wyoming visual artists whose work reflects serious and exceptional aesthetic investigation. Artists working in any media, including film and video, may apply. Applications are juried by noted artists, curators, and others in the visual arts from outside the state. Up to three fellowships may be given each year, and jurors may also select honorable mentions.

Recipients of the Visual Arts fellowships exhibit their work in the Wyoming Arts Council Biennial Exhibit, held every two years at a major visual arts institution or museum in the state. The exhibition is curated by one of the jurors, who serves on the panel for two years.

ELIGIBILITY (all categories)

• Must be at least 18 years of age at time of application.
• Must not be a full-time student pursuing high school, college, or university art-related degrees.
• Must be a U.S. citizen or have legal resident status (evidence of U.S. citizenship, resident status and state residency may be required).
• May not be affiliated with the Wyoming Arts Council either as a board member or staff member, including their families, whether full-time, part-time or contractual.
• May not be an employee of the Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources.
• Must have been domiciled within the state borders for a total of 20 months in the previous two years.
• Must remain a Wyoming resident for at least one year after award, living in the state for at least 10 months of the year.
• Applicants must register or update their information in the Wyoming Arts Council’s Artists and Venues Directory.
• Must not have received a Visual Arts fellowship within the last four years.
• May receive a total of two fellowship awards in your lifetime.
• You may enter the competition only once by the deadline.

WHAT IF YOU WIN AN AWARD?

• You’ll receive $3,000 up front
• Fellowship recipients agree to participate in the Wyoming Arts Council Biennial Exhibition, and are included in the catalog produced.
• You’ll sign a contract that verifies you’re eligible to receive this award.
• You’ll need to supply a bio and head shot for publicity.
• You will retain all rights to this work and the work you produce during the grant period.
• You must fill out a final report form, due August 30, 2019, which asks questions about how this award helped you and what you accomplished during the year you received it.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

• Applications must be submitted through CaFE (callforentry.org). Emailed or mailed submissions will not be accepted.
• Artists working in any visual media are invited to apply, including: experimental (conceptual/new media), graphic (printmaking/book arts), painting, sculpture, installation, photography (includes experimental, color, black & white, photocopy and computer), clay, fiber, glass, leather, metal, paper, plastic, wood, mixed media, film or video.
• Artists may submit up to ten wo
  rk samples, of which up to two may be detail images, if appropriate.
• Film/video applicants may submit up to 4 samples, and have the option to submit stills.
• Work must have been created within the past 5 years
• Applicants are asked to submit an artist’s statement, a resume or CV, and to verify that they meet the eligibility requirements.
• Please ensure your name does not appear anywhere on the application or work samples, except where specifically requested, to preserve the anonymous nature of the judging.

Jurors

Ruth Bruno is the Public Art Program Manager at Colorado Creative Industries, the state of Colorado’s arts agency. As the Program Manager, Ms. Bruno oversees the selection process for Colorado’s Art in Public Places program, in which 1% of the construction budget for state-funded projects is allocated for public art. As well, Ms. Bruno consults on various contemporary art projects and serves on the board of Tilt West, a non-profit dedicated to providing a platform for inclusive community discussion and debate on a range of issues relevant to cultural production in Colorado and beyond. In addition to holding positions in commercial art galleries, she has a background in the nonprofit-arts sector in Denver, including working at the 2013 Biennial of the Americas and the Denver Art Museum, as well as with the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District assisting with the commissioning of a public artwork for the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Ms. Bruno earned an MA in Visual Arts Administration, with a focus in Arts Management, from New York University and a BA in History and Art History from Colorado College. In her spare time, she likes to explore Colorado, in a quest for the next mountain view and delicious craft beer.

Adriane Herman explores cycles of accumulation and release in our physical and emotional landscapes. She has had solo exhibitions at Adam Baumgold Gallery (NY), Western Exhibitions (Chicago), Kansas City Jewish Museum of Contemporary Art, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, and Rose Contemporary (Portland, Maine). Group exhibition venues include The Dalarnas Museum (Sweden); Portland Museum of Art; The Brooklyn Museum; Chapel Street Gallery at Yale University; The Ulrich Museum of Art and International Print Center New York. Her work is in the collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Herbert F. Johnson Museum, The Progressive Corporation, The Ulrich Museum, and The Walker Art Center. She has lectured at over 50 institutions and undertaken residencies in Nova Scotia; India; Mexico, and Kansas City. Herman explores content in context with students at Maine College of Art, where she is Professor of the MFA in Studio Art. Her recent solo exhibition “Out of Sorts,” at SPEEDWELL Projects in Portland, ME., received 2018 eco-Excellence award from ecomaine.

Winners of the 2018 Wyoming Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowships

Margaret K. Haydon of Laramie, WY

Margaret Haydon earned her MFA in ceramics in 1989 from San Francisco State University. She is currently Professor of Ceramics at the University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming. Haydon is fascinated by ongoing changes in habitat and species demographics brought about by the current environmental predicament. Combining her aesthetic work with field-work, she has worked with fish biologists and naturalists in the United States, Canada and Hungary. Her work is exhibited frequently around the country and internationally. In July 2013, Haydon gave a paper at the 7th International Symposium on Sturgeon, held in Nanaimo, BC, Canada. She organized and curated the exhibition, In the Company of Animals, which was installed in Kansas City at the Leopold Gallery, during the 2016 NCECA conference. In January 2017 her work was featured at the Loveland Art Museum in Loveland, Colorado in an exhibition titled Circling. In August 2017, her work was also included in Fabricating Nature, an exhibition at the William Havu Gallery in Denver, Colorado.

Patrick Kikut of Laramie, WY
Patrick Kikut was raised in a small beach town in Southern California. He earned a BFA from University of Colorado in 1990 and went on to earn an MFA in 1994 from the University of Montana. Currently he is living in Laramie Wyoming, painting and teaching at the University of Wyoming.

Kikut’s artistic research is comprised of painting, drawings and site-specific work that are based on personal experiences, myths, and history that have been played out on the Western landscape. The highways, prairies, wide open sage country, and expansive deserts often strike Kikut as empty stages- sets where the actors have vanished and what is left with is the residue of human actions. His paintings reflect a Western landscape and culture while acknowledging the fact that it is in the process of being radically transformed by climate changes and our economic needs.

Robert Martinez of Riverton, WY
Robert Martinez was born on the Wind River Reservation in Riverton Wyoming. He attended Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design, in Denver CO, and he graduated at age 19, becoming the Youngest Native American to graduate at that time.

His Northern Arapaho heritage remains a constant inspiration and source of ideas for his work. Living in Wyoming amongst the hard working people of the west and experiencing their issues also influence his creations. The past and present often resonate strongly throughout his work. Much of Robert’s current work uses the historical imagery, myth’s and stories of the West & Arapaho Culture to create images that have a statement on the issues of today. Using a strong contrast in of lights, darks, and painting in intense vibrant color, he creates striking imagery that is confronting and engages the viewer.

Fellowship recipients and honorable mentions are selected anonymously by jurors from outside the state. Jurors for the 2018 Visual Arts Fellowships were Ruth Bruno and Kirsten Furlong. Honorable mentions are Ashley Hope Carlisle (Laramie), Andy Kincaid (Jackson), and Rani Robison (Laramie). Fellowship recipients and honorable mentions are selected anonymously by jurors from outside the state. Jurors for the 2018 Visual Arts Fellowships were Ruth Bruno and Kirsten Furlong.

Previous Visual Arts Fellowship Recipients

List of Previous Recipients