Native Art Fellowship

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

Recipients of the Native Art Fellowship will also be given support to find a venue to showcase their work. Applications are are now open and the deadline to apply is June 9, 2023.

Apply here!

Jurors

Karen Ann Hoffman

Karen Ann Hoffman is a Haudenosaunee raised beadwork artist and citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. Hoffman lives, hunts, and gardens in a rural area of central Wisconsin sheltered by trees and grasslands and poised on the edge of a marsh.

Raised beadwork is a rare and elegant style whose forms and designs reach back over fourteen thousand years. It is a cultural hallmark for those of the Six Nations, linking the lessons of their past with the celebration of their today and the joyful anticipation of their future. It is this long and deep cultural connection that beckons and inspires her. “As a beader,” she says, “it is my privilege and responsibility to peer through that cultural lens, reflect on contemporary Indigenous experiences, and describe what I see on a field of velvet using glass beads and a steel needle.”

A slow and thoughtful beader, Hoffman often spends a year or more in the creation of one of her legacy pieces. crafted to be exquisitely culturally connected, these pieces are brought to life slowly and gently. They speak, she says, not for her as an individual, but for her People — past, present and future. They sing the lessons of their Ancestors in voices strong and clear.

 

Daniel McCoy

Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and surrounded with the arts from an early age, Dan was welcomed into a household of Artisans, Farmers, Music and Subculture,

McCoy began entering Native Art Competitions at age fifteen under the direction of Cherokee Artist, Mary Adair while attending boarding school in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

He received his formal Art Training at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. At the Institute, Daniel McCoy jr. was able to study and work with some of the best Native Artists in the field.

 

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Previous Native Art Fellowship Recipients