Native Art Fellowship

The Wyoming Arts Council introduced the Native Art Fellowship in 2021 as part of its on-going effort to increase support and recognition of Wyoming’s rich cultural arts and traditions.

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About the Native Art Fellowship

The Native Art Fellowship is a $5,000 unrestricted award of merit, based on the artist’s portfolio, honoring the work of Native artists based within Wyoming.

Artists working across any artistic discipline or medium (visual, literary, performing, folk & traditional, etc.) may apply. This fellowship is designed to raise the profiles of the highly talented Native artists in Wyoming and celebrate their artistry.

Recipients of the Native Art Fellowship will also be given support to find a venue to showcase their work.

Applications are juried by noted Native artists outside the state. Two fellowships will be given this year. Jurors may also select honorable mentions.

2024 Native Art Fellowship Info

2024 Application Window: March 12 – May 15, 2024

Click here for the online application:

Apply for the Native Art Fellowship Here

 

ELIGIBILITY

 

WHAT IF YOU WIN AN AWARD?

 

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

 

Meet the 2024 Jurors

Ben Pease (b.1989) is a native Montanan artist of Tsitsistas and Apsáalooke descent. He is Newly-Made Lodge clan from the Valley of the Chiefs District on the Crow Indian Reservation. His educational background includes studies at Minot State University, Montana State University, and Little Big Horn College. Pease uses his work to seek understanding and perspective as an Indigenous person, as reflected in his diverse projects and collaborations. His work has been featured in major exhibitions at museums such as the Field Museum of Chicago and the New York Historical Society. His works have been collected worldwide and are represented in the permanent collections of institutions such as the Whitney Western Art Museum and the Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Montana State University, and the Mulvane Art Museum.

Dakota Hoska (Oglála Lakȟóta Nation, Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee) serves as the Associate Curator of Native Arts at the Denver Art Museum where she has been employed since 2019. Previously, she served as a Curatorial Research Assistant at the Minneapolis Institute of Art supporting the ground-breaking exhibition “Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists.” Hoska completed her MA in Art History, focusing on Native American Art History, at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN (2019). She also completed two years of Dakhóta language at the University of Minnesota (2016) and received her BFA in Drawing and Painting from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (2012). Dakota has participated in multiple curatorial programs such as the EPIC international curatorial exchange program sponsored by the Association of Art Museum Curators, the Otsego Summer Seminar sponsored by the Fenimore Art Museum, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Native American Museum Fellowship at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the American Indian Museum Fellowship at the Minnesota Historical Society. She currently serves on multiple national advisory councils and frequently writes about and presents on issues related to curating Native North American art collections.

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2023 Native Art Fellowship Recipients

Rose Pecos-SunRhodes | Ceramics

The native clay pottery that Rose Pecos-SunRhodes creates stems from the upbringing she’s had as a member of the Jemez Pueblo tribe in New Mexico. Born and raised with the tradition of pottery she has learned from the masters of the village who have taught her to continue the age old cultural practices.

As a contemporary traditional artist/potter, she respects and takes from the old traditional methods of collecting the clays, paints and firing to using a more contemporary, unique flair on the style of the clay piece she is working on. Taught by her grandmother, the late Louisa Toledo and mother, the late Carol Pecos as a young child with the age-old tradition and ritual of prayer with the corn meal to thank the Mother Earth for the goods she has blessed us with and the taking of it.

Rose considers herself a contemporary figurative potter. Storytellers, which depict village storytellers from long ago are portrayed by many pueblo potters. The style Rose creates is of a female figure with the skirt flared out which serves as a base for her children to sit on. She has also created native-ity scenes; chess sets and a series of “Earth Mothers” which portray sacred places to Native Americans. She has won numerous awards at Santa Fe Indian Market, Heard Museum, Red Earth Art Festival, Eiteljorg Museum and featured in permanent exhibits at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, traveling exhibit, “From One Hand to Another” owned by the Eitlejorg Museum and the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. Her recent entry at The Autry Museum American Indian Art Marketplace show earned her a second-place award in pottery.

Rose recently retired from her teaching career on the Wind River Reservation to concentrate on her clay. For over 30 years, she has lived in Ethete with her husband, Virgil, and their 4 children, 9 grandchildren and great granddaughter. She has tenaciously kept her traditional clay teachings passing down the traditions to her grandchildren.

Taylar Dawn Stagner | Journalism & Creative Writing

Taylar Dawn Stagner (she/her) is a writer and a journalist from Riverton, Wyoming. She focuses on Indigenous Affairs and has worked for Wyoming Public Media, and High Country News Magazine. Stagner won an Edward R. Murrow Award for her podcast episode on rural drag queens in Wyoming with The Modern West Podcast.

Currently, she is an Uproot Environmental Journalist Fellow and an Air New Voices Fellow, as well. Additionally, she mentors for NPR’s Next Generation Radio: Indigenous and holds a master’s degree in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University. Stagner is a Southern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone descendant.

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Previous Native Art Fellowship Recipients

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Contact Information

For more information on the Native Art Fellowship, contact Kimberly Mittelstadt at the Arts Council, 307-274-6673 or kimberly.mittelstadt@wyo.gov.