Welcome to our online feature about the 2020 Individual Artist Award recipients. A national panel of artists and art leaders picked 25 Project Awards and 10 Fellowships from 289 applications. An Alaska panel selected the Distinguished Artist. Some of the artists work in traditional art forms, some choose modern or experimental ones, and others combine methods and disciplines. In 2020 for the first time, awardees include artists working collaboratively, and four groups were selected. Together, this year’s artists give us new ways to see and appreciate our world. Explore here to learn more about all the 2020 awardees.
Wayne Price — 2020 Distinguished Artist
A single $40,000 annual award honors a mature artist of recognized stature with decades of creative excellence and accomplishment in the arts.
Wayne Price is one of the first modern artists to master the art of carving traditional oceangoing canoes. (Photo by Pat Race)Wayne Price is a Tlingit master carver who is renowned for the artistry and precision of his formline work. He has restored and duplicated historic totem poles and structures as well as created numerous original designs. He helped revive the knowledge and techniques required to carve traditional oceangoing canoes. Price also teaches traditional arts as a path to healing, sobriety and well-being. He was born in Juneau and grew up in Haines, where he began carving at Alaska Indian Arts in his teens. He lives there now. His Tlingit name is Aayaank’i. Learn more about Price and watch a short film here.
Fellowships
$18,000 awards allow mid-career or mature artists to focus their energy and attention for a one-year period of creative development.
Absolute Zero
Anchorage
Multidiscipline
The artists will work with sexual assault survivors on a sculptural installation in Western Alaska. The sculptures will make sound as a metaphor for breaking silence. A film documenting the process will amplify the convergence of voices calling for “absolute zero” sexual violence.
Absolute Zero: Sarah Davies, sculptor and project director; Ed Mighell, ceramic engineer; and Joshua Albeza Branstetter, documentary filmmaker. Rachelle Branstetter is project manager.
Christy NaMee Eriksen
Juneau
Presentation/Interpretation
Eriksen, a multidisciplinary poet, will create a new body of work focused on her teen years as a Korean adoptee. She will explore themes of loss and identity in different forms: poetry, spoken word performance and a novel-in-verse for young adults.
Emma Hildebrand
Northway
Visual Arts
Hildebrand is an Athabascan artist. She will purchase tanned hides, quills and beads that will allow her to create new works and teach the traditional knowledge and craftsmanship that she learned from her mother and other Alaska Native elders.
Emma Hill
Anchorage
Music
Hill traveled this winter through 30-plus national parks, writing and recording melodies, poetry and potential lyrics. She plans a cohesive work, “Park Songs,” with music, poetry and images to immerse audiences in the power of natural spaces and underscore their importance in our culture.
Linda Infante Lyons
Anchorage
Visual Arts
Infante Lyons incorporates sacred elements from Sugpiaq, or Alutiiq, and Russian traditions in her iconic portraits and Alaska landscape paintings. She will create a new body of work celebrating the strength and spiritual power of contemporary rural Alaska Native youth.
Cynthia Morelli
Homer
Visual Arts
Morelli explores femininity in woodfired clay sculptural works. Her anagama kiln is one of only two in Alaska. She will advance her mastery of firing techniques through study with female mentors and will enhance her online presence.
Holly Mititquq Nordlum
Anchorage
Multidiscipline
Nordlum elevates Alaska Native people through practice and teaching of traditional tattooing. She will add to her knowledge by visiting Canadian Inuit communities, documenting stories to share through Indigenous social media networks.
Kristy Summers
Anchorage
Visual Arts
Summers creates contemporary sculpture in mixed media: cast and fabricated metal, wood, resin, concrete, found objects. She will construct a home studio that will allow her to produce and share new work influenced by Alaska.
Jennifer Younger
Sitka
Multidiscipline
Younger is renowned for her copper, silver and spruce root jewelry inspired by Tlingit formline design. For a planned solo exhibit, she is excited to design and create new works of art beyond jewelry that honor her heritage.
Project Awards
Awards of $7,500 support emerging, mid-career and mature artists in specific, short-term projects.
Annie Bartholomew
Juneau
Music Composition
“A banjo is a time machine,” says Bartholomew. She will record an album of original songs inspired by women of the Klondike Gold Rush on a new custom instrument, using Alaska and personal history to explore themes of sexual assault, survival and resilience.
Mandy Bernard
Homer
Crafts
Bernard’s fiber art explores themes of interconnection and communication. She will create two new bodies of work: diptych sculptures employing dissonant fibers and textiles, and a wearable art collection integrating paper-cut accessories.
Sarah Campen
Taas Daa (Lemesurier Island)
Choreography
Campen’s choreography employs an Alaska-specific movement vocabulary. She plans to create a multimedia dance performance documenting the physical language of salmon processing, integrating interviews with commercial fishers.
Nick Carpenter
Anchorage
Music Composition
Carpenter is a singer/songwriter who makes music with the band Medium Build. He describes his songs as honest and deep, but also danceable and fun. He’s planning a tour to the Lower 48 to show that Alaska music isn’t just for Alaska.
Corinna Cook
Juneau
Literary Arts/Scriptworks
Cook is working on a book-length collection of lyric essays built around research into the art, changing ecology and often-painful history of Southeast Alaska and the Canadian Yukon. She will dialogue with works of art to explore how we can flourish together in a changing North.
Rachel DeTemple
Fairbanks
Music Composition
DeTemple is confronting the “grass ceiling” limiting opportunities for women in bluegrass. She will record an album of original songs about claiming voice, featuring herself on fiddle and vocals, singing about the experiences of women.
Michael Dickerson
Anchorage
Music Composition
Dickerson, a composer, explores relationships between people and place through sound. He plans to hold concerts of original music in Alaska’s abandoned military structures, employing their unique acoustics and documenting the work on film.
Somer Hahm
Fairbanks
Visual Arts
Hahm wants to stretch the idea of where paintings can live. She will add three barn quilts — vibrant geometric paintings of quilt blocks — to her existing Far North Quilt Trail in Fairbanks, enlivening the city’s visual and cultural landscape.
Hayden focuses on detail and craftsmanship in hand-stitched leather goods that are functional as well as artistic. She will purchase an industrial sewing machine and invest in training to expand her skills and the capacity and range of her work.
Lily Hope
Juneau
Multidiscipline
Hope will elevate her weaving through research on traditional Chilkat design. Her upcoming show will feature ancient and original robe patterns collaged with historical documents, demonstrating how Chilkat weaving records Indigenous history.
Huitzilin
Anchorage/Bethel
Literary Arts/Scriptworks
The artists will write an original screenplay for a biopic based on Saúl Armendáriz, aka Cassandro el Exotico. It will explore how Armendáriz, who is openly gay and Indigenous, has challenged prescribed roles in lucha libre, a hypermasculine Mexican wrestling tradition.
Huitzilin (Hummingbird, in Nahuatl language): Bryan Allen Fierro and Don Rearden.
Nelson Kempf
Kenai
Music Composition
Kempf will produce an album of original songs that he describes as a sonic exploration. He wants to better understand himself within a wider context of Alaska cultural history while reaching toward decolonization and environmental stewardship.
Kodiak Collective
Kodiak
Multidiscipline
Illustrator Zahn Pristas and writer Loewen will create a mobile installation reflecting the history and circular nature of life in the Kodiak Archipelago. They will integrate literature and art in broadsides to spark connection around shared community values and experiences.
Kodiak Collective: writer Sara Loewen and illustrator Natasha Zahn Pristas.
Ethan Lauesen
Fairbanks
Visual Arts
Lauesen’s prints explore Alaska Native and LGBTQ+ identity, using Tlingit formline images and figurative distortions to express belonging and rejection in Indigenous culture. They will create work for a solo show promoting healing around these themes.
Sarah Manriquez
Fairbanks
Visual Arts
Manriquez will expand on her documentary photo project challenging stereotypes around homelessness in Alaska. Her work involves close collaboration with people experiencing homelessness to ensure they are active participants in telling their stories.
Ree Nancarrow
Fairbanks
Visual Arts
Nancarrow is a fiber artist whose work is informed by science. Purchase of new equipment will help her to tell complex stories in eight to 10 large wall quilts about climate change and its consequences on Alaska’s ecosystems.
Sean Northover
Anchorage
Music Composition
Northover’s music reflects his Jamaican-American roots. He will produce an album of original songs, incorporating hip-hop, R&B, jazz, soul, reggae, pop and folk influences. He hopes “to spread love by showing people who look like me (and those who don't) what we are all capable of.”
Aaron Phillips
Anchorage
Crafts
Phillips, a carver, enjoys learning and telling stories about Alaska Native people in wood. He will purchase materials and equipment. He hopes to also travel to Juneau to study with mentors to advance his artistry.
Tent City Press
Anchorage
Visual Arts
The printmakers’ collective will invest in new equipment, software and supplies to enhance artistic quality and expand self-publishing capacity. Members are eager to expand studio access to a wider community of creatives.
Tent City Press team: Levi Werner, project lead; Bryce Nicolasa Fredrick, sole proprietor and studio manager; and core members Will Dowd, Jesus Landin-Torrez, Daniel Sparks, Shoko Takahashi and Jessi Thornton.
Mark Tetpon
Anchorage
Crafts
Tetpon’s original hoop masks tell Iñupiaq stories in ivory, wood, fossilized whalebone and baleen. He will purchase materials that will allow him to expand his creative range, producing larger masks with bronzed clay elements.
Tamara Wilson
Fairbanks
Visual Arts
Wilson’s mixed-media installations combine domestic objects and construction materials. She will complete “The Lemonade Stand,” a retrofitted trailer providing a mobile venue for experimental, installation and performance art. She will feature artists virtually between installations.
Crystal Worl
Juneau
Folk & Traditional Arts
Multimedia artist Worl will collaborate with other artists and clan members on a mural of Elizabeth Peratrovich in downtown Juneau. Worl, who is Tlingit of the Lukaax.adi clan, Athabascan and Yup’ik, is proud to honor the civil rights leader, a fellow clan member.
TJ Sgwaayaans Young
Hydaburg
Visual Arts
Young continues his family tradition of carving. He will create a replica of a rare Haida bow housed at the Anchorage Museum. He is excited to work with an unusual hardwood — yew — and to revive the knowledge needed to carve traditional Haida weaponry.
Individual Artist Awards Program
These awards provide artists the resources to concentrate and reflect on their work, to immerse themselves in creative endeavors, and to experiment, explore, and develop their artistry more fully. It is our hope that these investments result in substantial contributions to Alaska’s culture, the vibrancy of our communities, and to art itself.
Applications for the 2021 Project Awards and Fellowships open Dec. 15, 2020, and close March 1, 2021. Nominations for the next Distinguished Artist will be accepted starting Oct. 1 and will close Dec. 15. Forms and guidelines are available online or by request. Want to know more about the program and application process? Visit www.rasmuson.org/iaa.
Made by Social Good Studio in Anchorage, Alaska.
