FY 2019 Grantees
Artist Initiative
Project grants are for artists at all stages of their careers, to support artistic development, nurture artistic creativity, and recognize the contributions individual artists make to the creative environment of the state of Minnesota.
Awards grouped below by discipline.
Dance
| Number of grants awarded: |
8 |
| Total dollars awarded: |
$ 79,674 |
| Grantee, City |
Grant Amount |
Lisa L. Berman, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Berman will utilize breakin' movement to choreograph for a short experimental film, in collaboration with filmmaker Maria Juranic. A public screening and talk back will be held at 3irdspace in Minneapolis. |
Sam Johnson, Minneapolis | $ 9,820 | | "Research Council" is a serial performance series about meetings, knowledge transfer, and the value of not knowing. |
Laura M. Levinson, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Movement artist Levinson presents "Dumpster Fire," a performance held at Franconia Sculpture Park. Featuring new works by six queer/trans artists, "Dumpster Fire" celebrates catharsis and self liberation within community. |
Sharon M. Picasso, Minneapolis | $ 9,994 | | Picasso will collaborate with sound Artists Beatrix*JAR and visual artist Jesse Mathew Peterson to develop a movement work using the concept of efracted light and video. |
Ranee A. Ramaswamy, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Choreographer Ramaswamy will work with filmmaker Caitlin Hammel to make "Lineage," a video installation about her art form, Bharatanatyam, and the work she has done with her daughters since immigrating to Minnesota in 1978. |
April L. Sellers, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | The April Sellers Dance Collective will engage with audiences about their creative process through live performance and a video blog while in residence at Tofte Lake Center in Ely. |
Marciano Silva dos Santos, Shoreview | $ 9,955 | | Silva dos Santos creates "Brazil." Through unique dance fusion choreography, and with recordings of elders speaking memories, "Brazil" explores influences of Afro/Brazilian history and diaspora that shape his work. |
Arwen P. Wilder, Minneapolis | $ 9,905 | | Wilder will collaborate with Kristin Van Loon, Heidi Eckwall, and Ryan Fontaine to build "Jealousy," a performance, artist talk, and zine with sculpture, lighting, and dance made specifically in Hair + Nails Gallery. |
Media Arts
| Number of grants awarded: |
16 |
| Total dollars awarded: |
$159,978 |
| Grantee, City |
Grant Amount |
David Ash, Saint Anthony | $ 10,000 | | Ash will write, direct, and produce the twenty-minute pilot episode of a series based on his award winning feature film, Twin Cities. A public screening will take place at the historic Heights Theater in Columbia Heights. |
Alec M. Fischer, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Fischer will complete postproduction of GenerationQ, a documentary series exploring the lives of emerging queer Minnesotan changemakers. The finished series will be released online and shown in Minneapolis. |
Rebecca Heidenberg, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Heidenberg will make a rough cut for an experimental short film that deals with migration through a historical narrative about Walter Benjamin, a personal story that includes the oral histories of other Minnesota residents. |
Keith Hopkins, Duluth | $ 10,000 | | Hopkins will complete a feature film, The Halfway House, which will explore Saint Louis County ghost stories and folklore with the help of local historians and paranormal experts. |
Joe Horton, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Vessel is a projection installation combining photography, film, and digital compositing to evoke a mystical futurism. Vessel will be presented gallery style with sound design adding sonic texture to the viewing space. |
Rini Y. Keagy, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Utilizing disparate source materials, Keagy will create a formally diverse series of short videos towards an ongoing project on migration and the Guatemalan Civil War. Interactive screenings will be held in the Twin Cities. |
Teresa L. Konechne, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Konechne will create film vignettes of farmers, especially elders, speaking about farming and traditions we have lost. These will be part of story circles in rural areas to host dialogues and transfer knowledge. |
Jennifer A. Kramer, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Kramer adapts a one-woman play, The Runaway Nun, to the screen as part of a series based on the lives of women behind famous husbands. The premiere will be held in collaboration with the Minnesota Women's Press. |
Sarah Moua, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Moua will produce and edit a twenty-minute short film called Kav Tsij Uv about a woman in her twenties who is trying to find her identity as a single Hmong American woman while healing from her relationship with her parents. |
Riley L. Nelsen, Baxter | $ 9,983 | | Nelsen will share the video Bird House Legend, a documentary on the life and craft of Dick Bellefeille who in the Anishinaabe tradition has crafted over 25,000 original birdhouses with birch bark and barnwood. |
Andrew T. Peterson, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Peterson will direct Breathe, a five-minute short film exploring family dynamics, and publicly screen the finished film at Trylon Microcinema in Minneapolis. |
Maribeth Romslo, Edina | $ 10,000 | | Romslo will produce a conceptual dance film depicting a woman's experience in a Frankfurt kitchen. She will screen the film in the Twin Cities followed by a discussion about the multidimensional lives of women. |
Tom Schroeder, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Schroeder loved the sixteen-millimeter educational films that he watched in classrooms as a child in the 1970's. The Birth Order Experiment is a tribute to the genre as eccentric, auteur folk art, using a blend of live action and animation. |
Ariel Tilson, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Tilson completes her first independent film, Indigenous Roots (w.t). More than two years in the making, this film shares the creation and impact of the Indigenous Roots Cultural Arts Center in east Saint Paul. |
Jessica L. Woken, Cannon Falls | $ 10,000 | | Woken will create an animated series pilot. The title character, Le Mieux is a cat who wants to understand how his art fits into the world. The show will incorporate concepts like art, culture, and self-discovery. |
Touchaing Yang, Shoreview | $ 9,995 | | Yang will complete the script and direct In Between, a short film about a young Hmong man named Jason, who tries to avoid his father's traditional funeral as much as possible. |
Music
| Number of grants awarded: |
22 |
| Total dollars awarded: |
$ 213,735 |
| Grantee, City |
Grant Amount |
Krissy Bergmark, Minneapolis | $ 9,520 | | Bergmark will release an album that showcases the tabla in a modern acoustic instrumental setting, featuring tabla solo and voice, and tabla with combinations of berimbau, violin, vibraphone, bass, and banjo. |
Mark A. Bilyeu, Minneapolis | $ 9,545 | | Pianist Bilyeu will curate, perform, and record a cycle of twenty-four songs by twenty-four American composers that will mirror Schubert's major song cycle Winterreise. |
Jeffrey E. Brooks, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Brooks will compose a work for choir and harmonicas with texts by Minnesota teens on the topic of despair. The texts are interspersed with ancient poems of lamentation. The piece will be titled De Profundis. |
Gregory Brosofske, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Brosofske will create an interactive electronic music piece for choreographer Carl Flink. Titled In This House, this piece will examine the complex nature of the private lives that take place behind the walls of a home. |
Craig B. Carnahan, St Louis Park | $ 10,000 | | Carnahan will collaborate with Minnesota poet Julia Klatt Singer to compose a multimovement choral work for the Borealis Chorale (Grand Marais) that celebrates the beauty and drama of life on the North Shore. |
John P. Croarkin, Saint Paul | $ 9,750 | | Croarkin will form a five member group to perform his original compositions for two Pifano's and three percussionists. The group will give two public performances, and two performances followed by a workshop and Q and A. |
Paul K. Dice, Northfield | $ 10,000 | | Dice will compose his first concerto for jinghu (high-pitched Chinese violin) and Chinese traditional instruments orchestra and have it performed in Minnesota and China. |
Rolf C. Erdahl, Apple Valley | $ 8,120 | | Erdahl will record his bass transcriptions of Edvard Grieg's works for cello and piano, based on his doctoral dissertation and performing editions. A CD release party will be held at Norway House in Minneapolis. |
Michael M. Flora, Minneapolis | $ 8,325 | | Sound Objects is a two-day program exploring sound and composition in contemporary electronic music through concert and workshop. |
Jerry Kosak, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Jerry Kosak will perform his original music for acoustic guitar. Concerts will present his wide ranging explorations into solo guitar and guitar and bass, with bassist Gary Raynor. |
Andrea E. Leap, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Leap, soprano, will present a concert of eighteeth century music, including rarely heard compositions by female composers. Performances will be given in four Minnesota communities and followed by artist talk backs. |
Matthew McCright, Minneapolis | $ 9,475 | | McCright will commission and record a new work for piano by composer Andrea Mazzariello. The premier will take place in a public concert at Studio Z in Saint Paul. |
Scott L. Miller, Otsego | $ 10,000 | | Miller will develop ecosystemic music for Kyma and electromagnetically prepared piano with pianist Taavi Kerikmäe. A public demo and concert at Studio Z in Saint Paul will be filmed for documentation and distribution. |
Crystal J. Myslajek, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Myslajek will compose and perform a new music work for piano, voice, bass, drums, synthesizer, and tape looping, inspired by, and integrating, field recordings from the Phillips neighborhood in south Minneapolis. |
Natalie Nowytski, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | With a chamber ensemble of local artists, Nowytski will workshop, refine, record, and perform her compositions from East of the Sun, an interdisciplinary theatrical piece to be fully staged in the future. |
Rachel Ries, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Ries will write, arrange, rehearse, and direct new contemporary choral works for Kith + Kin Chorus, a 60-person uncommon indie rock and roll community choir, to be shared at a public performance. |
JC Sanford, Northfield | $ 10,000 | | Sanford will record a new CD recording with his quartet and present two concerts in Minneapolis and Northfield. |
SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE will produce a series of music videos promoting progressive sexual politics through songs about consent and healthy sexuality to create platforms for discourse about patriarchy, sex, and rape culture. |
Wilhelmina W. Smith, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 |
| Smith will record solo cello pieces by Poul Ruders and Per Nørgård in a CD of unaccompanied cello works by living Danish composers. A public performance of all works will take place in Duluth in the spring of 2019. |
Momoko Tanno, White Bear Lake | $ 10,000 | | Tanno will commission songs and adapt them into the Japanese story of Hebionna (Snake Woman) for two voices, piano, cello, and a dancer, and perform in a reading performance in the spring of 2019. |
Steve H. Tibbetts, Mendota Heights | $ 9,000 | | Tibbetts will remaster and transfer nine of his albums from analog tape to high resolution digital media. Large and small-scale concerts as well as panel discussions or open Q and A on media preservation will follow. |
Janika L. Vandervelde, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Vandervelde will engage in a nine-month residency with Zeitgeist's Heather Barringer and Patti Cudd, culminating in The Gates of Horn and Ivory, an electro-acoustic piece exploring the nature of dream reality. |
Photography
| Number of grants awarded: |
17 |
| Total dollars awarded: |
$ 168,172 |
| Grantee, City |
Grant Amount |
Melissa A. Borman, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Borman will create a book based on her project, A Piece of Dust in the Great Sea of Matter which critically engages conventional aesthetic associations between the human figure and nature. |
Mara Duvra, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Duvra will continue working on a photographic series entitled Tending: A Meditation on Interiority and Blackness/ on Black Female Subjectivity as it Relates to Stillness and Tenderness. |
Tia-Simone Gardner, Minneapolis | $ 9,500 | | This project is an experimental site based work that looks at the relationship between Blackness and the river. The work brings together geography, architecture, and feminist practice of rethinking racialized place. |
Mike Hazard, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Hazard will photograph a year in the life of Peace House, a homeless shelter in Minneapolis. In addition to exhibitions in the Franklin Library and Peace House, the artist will create his first Web site. |
John M. Matsunaga, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Matsunaga will produce and exhibit Kazoku no tame ni, a photobook that addresses his family's incarceration during World War II and the intergenerational impact that this has had on Japanese American families. |
Nikki J. McComb, Minneapolis | $ 8,855 | | We can create visible evidence based change using art as a catalyst for all persons affected by person to person gun crimes involving unlawful firearms, as well as address the issues that lead to crimes involving guns. |
Frank J. Meuschke, Minnetrista | $ 9,967 | | Meuschke will create new photographic works depicting his experience of the land and research at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve and exhibit these prints at the Waseca Art Center in Waseca, Minnesota. |
N Musinguzi, Minneapolis | $ 9,850 | | Musinguzi will continue to develop her new photographic series, The Letter Formally Known As Q which explores the themes of race, gender, sexuality, and citizenship. |
Barbra K. Nei, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Nei will produce and present the second installment of her ongoing photographic project Similitudes; The Girls from Group K, about international adoption, in an exhibition and talk at the Concordia University Gallery. |
Blake A. Nellis, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Nellis will curate, photograph, and publish an art photo book featuring Skin.Rock.Bone, photographs, artist testimonials, and poetry/prose focusing on elements of body image, self-love, nature, and the somatic experience. |
Areca Roe, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Roe will complete two photographic series exploring aspects of climate change and exhibit the work at Rosalux Gallery and The Grand in New Ulm. |
Christopher M. Selleck, Robbinsdale | $ 10,000 | | Selleck will complete his project Body Building. Using photography, sculpture, and polymer photogravure, Selleck will examine the intersection of weight lifting, masculinity, sexuality, and identity. |
Andrea R. Shaker, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Shaker will prepare for exhibition a new series of photographs and moving images exploring themes of home, homeland, and intergenerational memory. |
Xavier Tavera, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Tavera will publish Veterano@s, a photography book of Mexican American War Veterans in Minnesota. The book will be released in a public event. |
Keith M. Taylor, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Taylor will travel to different topographical areas of Minnesota to complete the project Otherworld and produce a set of handmade prints. These will be presented at Century College in White Bear Lake, Minnesota |
Carrie Thompson, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Thompson will create a book of her exhibition. She will have an open studio event and give others a place to speak about miscarriage. She will meet with publishers to talk about the best way to publish the work. |
Michelle W. Wingard, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Wingard will explore a new direction in her work about her grandfather's WWII plane crash. She will create a large-scale photo installation, time-lapse videos, and memorial tiles with a pop-up exhibition and critique event. |
Poetry
| Number of grants awarded: |
9 |
| Total dollars awarded: |
$ 83,880 |
| Grantee, City |
Grant Amount |
Theodosia Henney, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Henney will spend six months researching and writing a hybrid manuscript on death, gender, and honeybees. Henney will also facilitate a workshop and reading series themed around environmental justice. |
Preeti Kaur, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Rajpal will draft and edit her poetry work in progress, O, How We Escaped. She will hold a series of generative poetry workshops on the broad theme of human rights in Minneapolis. |
Janna M. Knittel, Minneapolis | $ 7,350 | | Knittel will complete her first book of poetry, Real Work. She will hold readings of the work in progress at Saint Cloud State University and the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. |
Ed Bok Lee, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Lee will give three public readings and focused, thematic talks from his third book of poetry, Mitochondrial Night (2019), at libraries in Elbow Lake, Saint Paul, and Minneapolis. Lee will also complete twelve new poems. |
Timothy Otte, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Otte will complete a final draft of a full-length poetry collection with editorial guidance from a mentor and perform public readings in three Minnesota cities. His work focuses on climate change and landscapes. |
Sun Yung Shin, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Shin will complete Utopias of Descent, a hybrid manuscript exploring the evolutionary "science" of race, gender, and reproduction. A public performance will be copresented with a scientist and held at a science venue. |
Su Smallen, Roseville | $ 10,000 | | Smallen will commission three dance films inspired by her new book of poems inspired by dance and visual art. The films will be shown with poetry readings and audience/artist conversations in Morris, Duluth, and Minneapolis. |
Michael P. Torres, Mankato | $ 9,980 | | Torres will write the first draft of a memoir in essay, host writing workshops for incarcerated juveniles, and host a public reading and a discussion focused on exploring identity in creative nonfiction. |
Chaun Webster, Minneapolis | $ 6,550 | | Gentrified Memory will be a series of readings and writing workshops meant to engage and interrogate the uneven landscapes of memory in north Minneapolis. |
Prose
| Number of grants awarded: |
37 |
| Total dollars awarded: |
$ 363,907 |
| Grantee, City |
Grant Amount |
Kendra L. Atleework, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Atleework will work on her nonfiction book exploring themes of home and stewardship. She will offer a Minneapolis reading with Friends of the Mississippi River and a writing workshop at Sugarloaf Cove Nature Center. |
Maya Beck, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Beck will write and revise a body of speculative short stories as preparation for publication. She will also host three events that engage geeks of color in examining their subcultures. |
Essence Bonitaz, Maplewood | $ 10,000 | | Bonitaz will rewrite the manuscript for, Ajha's Web, the first novel in a series about a woman whose advice rules the lives of unsuspecting loved ones that divulge their deepest secrets on her anonymous advice blog. |
Rachel V. Castro, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Castro will write the second draft of her essay collection which explores her first generation American upbringing and performative whiteness. She will also teach nonfiction workshops and host a public reading. |
Kristin N. Collier, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Collier will finish her nonfiction book about debt, family, and forgiveness. Additionally, she'll lead workshops in which participants develop techniques for telling stories about family, love, grief, and home. |
Josh Cook, Saint Paul | $ 9,525 | | Cook will revise his short story collection, A Hug for My Amygdala, and will create three public events themed around mental health, which will be a collaboration between musicians and writers. |
Venus DeMars, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | De Mars, trans front person of glam punk/trans band ATPH, shares memoir reflections of an era wholly accepting of trans phobic violence and discrimination while navigating marriage, a band, and her public gender transition. |
E.A. Farro, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Farro will use grant funds to complete her first book. Science Love Letters takes the reader on a complex and unique journey through what it means to be a scientist in research, politics, and motherhood. |
Carson D. Faust, Mankato | $ 10,000 | | Faust, an emerging Native American writer, will write a series of stories centering on queer and Native characters, work with a mentor, and give a reading in Mankato with other writers from underrepresented groups. |
Holly J. Gross, Andover | $ 9,500 | | Gross will have a fully revised manuscript of her memoir, Where Presidents Lived, ready for traditional publication as well as the knowledge and information to successfully begin the query and publishing process. |
Elizabeth M. Horneber, Mankato | $ 10,000 | | Horneber will work with a mentor on the revision of her first book length collection of essays. A panel reading and discussion about the intersections of the personal and the public will be held in Mankato. |
Rebecca Kanner, Saint Paul | $ 9,920 | | Kanner will complete her essay collection dealing with mental health issues and the stigma surrounding them. Along with other Twin Cities writers, she will hold a panel on writing about mental health. |
Brian J. Malloy, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Malloy will complete a draft of his first Minnesota historical fiction collection, and perform a public reading and facilitate a community discussion of his short story Boundary Waters at Ely Folk School. |
Michele Micklewright, Brooklyn Park | $ 10,000 | | Micklewright will facilitate a memoir writing workshop for residents of Saint Therese apartments in Brooklyn Park and a northeast Minneapolis senior housing facility. Participants will deepen skills in reflecting upon/writing memories. |
Saara Myrene Raappana, Marshall | $ 10,000 | | Raappana will study a fiction curriculum and work with a mentor to write/revise eight stories that represent rurality and femininity as complex and diverse. She'll host a workshop and reading in southwest Minnesota and a reading in the Twin Cities. |
Sheila M. O'Connor, Edina | $ 10,000 | | O'Connor will promote her forthcoming novel, Reconstructing V, to new audiences. Focusing on little known Minnesota history of incarcerated girls, O'Connor will market and present to readers throughout the state. |
Nneka Onwuzurike, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Onwuzurike will continue work with a mentor to complete a draft of her first book length project, a collection of personal essays focused on the displacement of children of immigrants. |
Lara Palmqvist, Faribault | $ 10,000 | | Palmqvist will complete a story collection by writing two new stories, and will work with a mentor to revise the full manuscript. She'll host two open mic readings as well as two craft workshops on the theme of excavation. |
Kasey M. Payette, Saint Paul | $ 9,963 | | Payette will complete a draft of her first novel and host writing workshops on navigating the complexities of a religious upbringing. |
Thomas D. Peacock, Duluth | $ 6,009 | | Peacock will write The Wolf's Trail, a work of fiction about the Ojibwe relationship with wolves, and do writing for publication workshops in Minnesota's tribal communities using excerpts of the manuscript as examples. |
Roseanne G. Pereira, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Thinking about how all ghost stories are love stories, Pereira will facilitate writing workshops open to the public that incorporate guided meditation and writing prompts geared towards addressing what we cherish. |
Vanessa Ramos, Woodbury | $ 10,000 | | Ramos will complete new work for young readers. She will facilitate an OwnVoices panel and offer a workshop for other writers of color and indigenous writers who are interested in writing for young audiences. |
Glenda E. Reed, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Reed will incorporate research into her memoir, host a reading and panel discussion of feminist Minnesota authors, and conduct writing workshops with underresourced teen girls. |
Lynette E. Reini-Grandell, Minneapolis | $ 9,900 | | Reini-Grandell will complete a book length memoir draft reflecting on her 35-year transgender marriage, give public readings, and participate in panel discussions about negotiating a loving, changing relationship. |
Erin Kate Ryan, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Ryan will complete her short story collection, Parade Of Horribles, which explores a continuum of human experience through characters who exist at the edge of humanity, and will host an interactive fiction event. |
Kathryn D. Savage, Minneapolis | $ 9,850 | | Savage will complete the first 75 pages of her lyric novel that is concerned with the ways loss imbeds itself in the body and will lead a workshop at Shakopee Correctional Facility on this theme. |
Felicia Schneiderhan, Duluth | $ 10,000 | | Schneiderhan will work with a mentor to rewrite a novel about the devastating affects of addiction and the hope of recovery. She will teach creative writing workshops for people in the early stages of recovery. |
Erin D. Sharkey, Minneapolis | $ 9,290 | | Sharkey will use funds to complete a collection of prose poems, Urban Farmers Almanac. Events will include a public reading in Saint Paul and a workshop at the Minnesota Correctional Facility at Lino Lakes. |
Mihret M. Sibhat, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Sibhat will complete a revision of her first novel, The History of a Difficult Child, a humorous take on the tempestuous childhood of a queer woman in Ethiopia. She will also organize a bilingual writing workshop. |
Pamela J. Smith, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Smith will complete Edgewalker, a memoir for anyone directly or indirectly touched by cancer. She will hold readings at Gilda's Club in Minnetonka and the Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance in Minneapolis. |
Sarah L. Stonich, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Stonich will introduce her novel Laurentian Divide, a sequel to Vacationland, at rural libraries in conversational programs with area writers and audiences on the quiet activism of literature in an era of loud headlines. |
Kristin A. Tipping, Minneapolis | $ 9,950 | | Tipping is a queer Minneapolis based comic creator. She will complete her graphic novel Evil Witch Allie and the Book of Secrets and finalize the script to its sequel. |
Mimi Van Ausdall, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Van Ausdall will complete a manuscript of her first novel Across the Fence, Gather the Sky. A public reading will be held in Minneapolis. |
Diane E. Wilson, Shafer | $ 10,000 | | As a Dakota writer developing a new body of work focused on recovering an indigenous relationship with the land, this grant will help me develop a collection of essays and improve my marketing and social media skills. |
S.A. Wolter, Eden Prairie | $ 10,000 | | Wolter will revise and prepare for submission to agents and publishers her novel, All That Lies Beneath, set in northwestern North Dakota amidst the oil exploration, and coordinate a public reading with several Minnesota writers. |
Allison Wyss, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Wyss will complete revision of her first novel, Ghost Arm, and will lead a Strange Bodies in Art and Writing tour at the MIA. |
Kao K. Yang, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | As one of a few Hmong writers in the state, I want to do my part in contributing to more diverse children's books for our young readers. |
Theater
| Number of grants awarded: |
8 |
| Total dollars awarded: |
$ 80,000 |
| Grantee, City |
Grant Amount |
Rachel Austin, Minneapolis |
$ 10,000 | | Austin will create and present a solo work about caring for an ill parent. Engaging
caregivers in its development, she will create a handbook documenting the needs of the community to
be presented to relevant organizations.
|
Antonio Duke, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Duke will write and perform Missing Mississippi Moons, a solo performance piece about the migration of his ancestors from Greenville, Mississippi to Chicago from the 1930s to the 1970s. |
Aaron A. Gabriel, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Gabriel will acquire technology and training to embolden his work with theater artists and musicians. He will learn leading edge techniques in sound design, mixing, and electronic music to create innovative new compositions. |
Christopher E. Griffith, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Griffith will explore new ground in his work as a puppetry artist by weaving traditional Cherokee tales and research with personal narrative and family history into three storytelling performances for family audiences. |
Matt Guidry, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Guidry will write and perform a work in progress version of Over the Edge about his experience of raising a child with significant disabilities, exposing audiences to new narratives about the disability community. |
Wendy K. Knox, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Theater director Knox will create a multiplatform work sample to promote her directing and teaching artist work, available in print, DVD/digital format, and online. |
Luverne G. Seifert, St Anthony | $ 10,000 | | Seifert and a team of theater artists will join with residents of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, to create and perform The Ruby Slippers Project, an original work about the effects of a high-profile theft from the Judy Garland Museum. |
Elle Thoni, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Thoni will expand her playwriting practice into public space through the research and development of Queen B, a new play set in community gardens that invites audiences into a resilient future inspired by honeybees. |
Visual Arts
| Number of grants awarded: |
73 |
| Total dollars awarded: |
$ 720,721
|
| Grantee, City |
Grant Amount |
Hend A. Al-Mansour, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Al-Mansour will expand her artistic growth by learning to make motion graphic videos based on drawings, and integrate that with three-dimensional installation. She will exhibit her work and lead a workshop and a lecture in Saint Paul. |
Katayoun Amjadi, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Naming is the first act of calling into being. The Names We Change is a series of video interviews investigating myriad immigrant diaspora responses to identity transformation in the way first names are kept or changed. |
Krista J. Anderson-Larson, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Anderson-Larson will create an immersive installation of found object sculptures featuring architectural and furniture fixtures of homes, bringing a heightened public awareness of, and exploring, female sexuality. |
Teresa Audet, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Audet will take workshops at local craft schools to build handcraft skills to create high quality artwork that combines elements of woodworking and basketry. Audet will show this work at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. |
Alyssa E. Baguss, Anoka | $ 10,000 | | Baguss will create a new body of work to be exhibited at the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization around themes of the river and how technology influences the relationship people have with the natural environment. |
Julie R. Benda, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Benda will develop and exhibit new work combining sculptural wood carving, print, and narrative. |
Martha Bird, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Bird will create fiber sculptures and give a reclaiming basketry lecture to explore the body's experience of trauma/healing. An exhibit and lecture will be held at Kaddatz Gallery in Fergus Falls, and Plymouth Church in Minneapolis. |
Rachel B. Breen, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Breen will create an installation with jeans to encourage reflection about the people who sew our clothes and overconsumption. She will also develop a mending clinic to facilitate public engagement on this subject. |
Sayge M. Carroll, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Carroll will create a mural or sculpture in three cities or towns in Minnesota with local artists. |
Nicolas D. Darcourt, Minnetonka | $ 10,000 | | Darcourt will create a body of ceramic sculptural work which expresses the accumulation of cultural iconography, using plaster molds. This work will be exhibited at the Carnegie Art Center in Mankato, in the fall of 2019. |
Emily Donovan, Saint Paul | $ 8,925 | | Donovan will create a series of batik paintings using natural dyes, to explore the journey of birds in Minnesota. She will exhibit at her studio in the Northrup King Building during Art Attack 2019 and at a nature center. |
Pete Driessen, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Driessen will create a large-scale, abstract roundhouse sculpture reflecting the historical 1875 architecture at the Northern Pacific Rail Yard in Brainerd, Minnesota. A youth workshop, opening, and exhibit will be held on-site. |
Aaron J. Dysart, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Dysart will research fountains as a way to interpret natural processes. This research will culminate with a temporary installation at Silverwood Park in Saint Anthony, Minnesota. |
Shannon L. Estlund, Fridley | $ 10,000 | | Estlund will create a series of paintings exploring hidden patterns and relationships in Minnesota forests, and will hold a public exhibition and talk. |
Erik A. Farseth, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Farseth will create original collage animations, sound collages, and zines to be shared with the community at a multimedia pop-up museum at a local gallery/theater space, and compiled as artist books. |
Susan E. Feigenbaum, Eden Prairie | $ 10,000 | | Feigenbaum will create abstract ceramic wall sculptures depicting Minnesota birds in their habitats. She will present an exhibit, artist talk, and intergenerational clay workshop at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. |
Toni N. Gallo, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Gallo will create paintings exploring consciousness and offer meditation sessions as an exhibition in Minneapolis, connecting audience to art by sharing personal practice methods and creating unique space for discourse. |
AK Garski, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Garski will create a new series of paintings and explore the use of mirror as an installation material. The artist will lead a community engagement workshop at Gallery Three in August 2019. |
Susanna C. Gaunt, Duluth | $ 10,000 | | Gaunt will develop sculptural skills to produce interactive, natural history inspired works, including a series of portable suitcase dioramas. Finished pieces will be shared in both exhibition and workshop settings. |
Josette A. Ghiseline, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Ghiseline will create an installation about microplastic in the Mississippi River and the emerging bioplastic alternatives. She will build a large-scale sculptural artwork based on river boats made from homegrown biomaterials. |
Amanda M. Hamilton, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Hamilton will integrate printmaking into her practice by using her abstract paintings as plates from which to print. She will exhibit the work in a Minnesota venue and host a workshop in her Northeast Arts District studio. |
Marina E. Harkness, Minneapolis | $ 9,300 | | M. S. Harkness will complete Desperate Pleasures, a 150-page autobiographical graphic novel and host a weekly open studio night at Boneshaker Books. |
Alison Hiltner, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Hiltner will create an interactive environment at the Weisman Art Museum, exploring our reliance on interconnected biological systems that will be informed by her time at the University of Minnesota's School of Medicine. |
Jess Hirsch, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Hirsch will create an installation called Land (e)Scape, a sense based experience to explore the importance of winter and death through the seasonal cycles of the prairie. |
Sarah J. Holden, Minneapolis | $ 9,998 | | Holden will create an updated portfolio with new children's book illustrations and work toward securing agent representation. Her work will be displayed at the Northeast Public Library in Minneapolis. |
Jena T. Holliday, Brooklyn Park | $ 7,700 | | Holliday will create a new work of illustrations to share in an artist book at various readings and events in Minneapolis, highlighting minority youth that are bringing positive change to their communities |
Syed Hosain, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Hosain will create new body of work exploring his role as witness and surveyor of contemporary life which encompasses social realism and reportage of key sociopolitical moments of today. |
Emily C. Johnson, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Metalsmith Johnson will develop wax carving skills to further her artistic skill set and create a new body of sculptural, wearable work. She will do a public demonstration and exhibition to share these skills with Minnesota audiences. |
Vesna K. Kittelson, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Kittelson will produce a catalog with images and essays to accompany the transition of her career artwork to the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis. It will be publicly presented at a reception in the museum. |
Keren Kroul, Plymouth | $ 10,000 | | Kroul will create new large-scale watercolor on paper works. Upon completion, an exhibit and artist talk will take place at Bemidji State University, Bemidji; and Great River Arts, Little Falls. |
Tracy Krumm, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Krumm will create an installation of handmade interdependent objects that map autobiographical experience. An exhibit, lecture, and workshop will be at the MacRostie Art Center in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. |
Kristi S. Kuder, Battle Lake | $ 9,900 | | Kuder will produce an installation of new work combining wire felting with paper pulp techniques and provide construction and deconstruction experiences informed by nature's cycle of breaking down and building up through time. |
Janet M. Lobberecht, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Lobberecht's work explores the entangled and complex relationship between ecological systems and human made systems. She works primarily in drawing and painting. |
Mike Marks, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Marks will develop new artwork to be exhibited at Form+Content Gallery that examines the trajectory of land use in Minnesota and our calamitous relationship with nature. |
Catherine F. Meier, Duluth | $ 10,000 | | Meier will develop new animation and projection techniques creating an experimental installation with an artist talk at the Free Range Film Barn in Wrenshall, Minnesota; and an artist talk in Finland, Minnesota. |
Kelley A. Meister, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | RadMaps uses citizen science style data collection, mapping, public events, online data visualization, and creative thinking to address radioactive contamination in our environment through artist led workshops in Minnesota. |
Andy Messerschmidt, Ely | $ 10,000 | | Messerschmidt will hold an exhibition of recent landscape paintings in a pop-up gallery in Ely, showcasing work from his Agroccult series, an ongoing exploration of collected cultural ideologies regarding land rights. |
Ernest L. Miller, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Miller will build a kiln and create a body of work responding to the new firing environment. An exhibition of finished work and artist talk will be held at a regional art gallery. |
Kelli J. Nelson, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Nelson will create and exhibit a series of oil paintings inspired by Minnesota's natural areas. The artist's blend of abstraction and landscape will reveal an intimate experience with the state's rural destinations. |
Jennifer A. Nevitt, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Nevitt will create twelve traveling paintings, a painting that opens and closes like a traveling alarm clock, to interact with and gift viewers in public and common spaces. |
Kimber L. Olson, Eden Prairie | $ 10,000 | | To support the expansion of her ecology focused practice into the public art realm, Olson will create and present Reed, Root and Rhizome, a large-scale wool and steel sculpture that depicts a wetland buffer zone. |
Dougie Padilla, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Padilla will produce a ten-year retrospective exhibit and catalog of his work reflecting his life as a Minnesotan with Norge/Mex/Cowboy roots. This will archive and market his 40-year career as an artist/activist in Minnesota. |
Jasmine N. Peck, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Peck will produce a new body of work to be shown as a solo exhibition at Hair and Nails Gallery in September 2019. The work will be a continuation of Peck's investigation of the human body through sculptural means. |
Lois K. Peterson, Dakota | $ 10,000 | | Peterson will present a new body of large-format drawings at the Carnegie Art Center in Mankato. She will also host a panel with other speakers outside the arts touching on themes of spirituality and philosophy. |
Sonja D. Peterson, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Peterson will create a new body of work to be presented to the public in a committed, upcoming, 2019 solo exhibition. |
Nell Pierce, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Pierce will create Q'llage, a series of collages connecting Queer expressions of gender, family, and love with the resilience of natural ecosystems. The final exhibit will be at the Public Functionary in Minneapolis. |
Emmett Ramstad, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Ramstad will create new participatory sculptures from household objects with original sound design that will be accessible to audience members of all ages and abilities for a solo exhibition at The Soap Factory in 2019. |
Mary F. Reichert, Grand Marais | $ 9,745 | | Reichert will create three felt rug making events in Grand Marais, Duluth, and Grand Rapids. Participants will learn the art of Kyrgyz rug making as they felt a rug together. These will be gifted to the community when done. |
Connor K. Rice, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Rice will be a featured artist in and produce, a collaborative two-part art series featuring artists from a diverse range of backgrounds working in multiple mediums. The series of shows will bridge gaps within the Minnesots art scene. |
David T. Rogers, Mankato | $ 10,000 | | Rogers will create a series of large text based, mixed media compositions for a solo exhibition. An accompanying artist talk will inform the audience how dyslexia has played a notable role in shaping his art process. |
Megan Rye, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Rye was a foundling. In Korea, she was left on the steps of a police station with a note, "Please take care of this baby." In Foundling, Adoption file images inspire a series of paintings, revealing the fragile migration to home. |
Cecilia M. Schiller, Saint Paul | $ 10,000 | | Schiller will implement a development and marketing strategy for the production and sale of a line of automata (interactive mechanical artwork) to be laser cut and sold as kits, plans, and assembled and signed artworks. |
Rebecca Silus, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Silus will complete the drawings for her graphic novel based on a historic 1921 diary that takes place in Minnesota. It will explore the state's built and cultural landscape between 1921 and the present. |
Nicole S. Simpkins, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Simpkins will create new installation work of mixed media drawings exploring resonance between ecosystems and human communities. |
MR. Smith, Eagan | $ 10,000 | | Smith will stage an exhibition honoring the state of Minnesota, the City of Saint Paul, and the Rondo community that influenced the birth and leadership of the Civil Rights Movement. |
Rose J. Smith, Eagan | $ 10,000 | | In 1968, Smith decided to artistically follow the journey of a lost tribe, African Americans. Her forty-two year journey leads to an exhibition about the Rondo neighborhood at the Weisman Art Museum in the summer of 2019. |
Frederick D. Somers, Northfield | $ 10,000 | | Oil and pastel artist Somers will show new art and a retrospective of a 50-year career at the American Swedish Institute in 2020. A catalog will be available and the public will be invited to paint out, open studio, and conversation with the artist events. |
Sam Spiczka, Sauk Rapids | $ 10,000 | | Sculptor Spiczka will create a new series of large-scale steel sculptures inspired by the human hand in response to an accident which resulted in him cutting off the ends of all four fingers on his left hand. |
Tom Stewart, Mahtomedi | $ 10,000 | | Stewart is painting plein air at four historic sites along the Mississippi River. An exhibit at the White Bear Center for the Arts will compare the current view with paintings from the 1800s. A discussion will follow. |
Niccu Z. Tafarrodi, Plymouth | $ 10,000 | | Taffordi will reach new audiences for her diorama works depicting scenes of her childhood in Iran, opening the door to conversations with Minnesotans about Persian culture and her experiences as an immigrant. |
Amy T. Toscani, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Toscani will exhibit at the Rural America Contemporary Art Gallery in January 2020. She will use this grant for research and development in order to produce a new body of work. |
Solomon J. Trimble, Duluth | $ 9,974 | | Trimble will write and direct a film with a local Indigenous cast and crew, highlighting traditional scary stories set in the modern day. An artist panel will follow the screening at Zeitgeist Theater in Duluth. |
Lisa S. Truax, Winona | $ 10,000 | | Truax will create and exhibit ceramic sculptures based on abstractions of the local environment and incorporating local and recycled materials. She will also hold a workshop and open studio in Pickwick, Minnesota. |
Moira I. Villiard, Duluth | $ 10,000 | | Villiard will create a series of portraits and digital posters exploring our relationship to human rights on a global and individual scale. |
Megan E. Vossler, Minneapolis | $ 6,620 | | Vossler will complete a large-scale watercolor and gouache installation. An exhibition and artist led conversation will take place in a Twin Cities gallery at the end of the grant year. |
Michon J. Weeks, Northfield | $ 10,000 | | Weeks will create paintings and drawings about eighteen choir members at her rural church, exploring the politics of representation among a sometimes unseen group of people. Work will exhibit at the Rochester Art Center. |
Michael D. Welton, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Building upon his past work on vintage signs around the Twin Cities area, Mike Welton will develop new paintings exploring the historical and personal relationship between Minnesotans and their regional vintage signage. |
Gwen Westerman, Good Thunder | $ 10,000 | | Westerman will complete a series of quilts, based on a Plains Indian tradition of honoring the mothers of warriors. These quilts will portray the experiences of mothers across time and cultures in Minnesota. |
Nate White, Minneapolis | $ 9,215 | | Concepts of ritual and ceremony will be explored by White in a solo show at the Anoka County Library. It will feature bowls inspired by historical Scandinavian design combined with forms of personal, innovative artistic style. |
Jody L. Williams, Minneapolis | $ 10,000 | | Williams will produce new work with books and boxes focusing on specific Minnesota locations, which will be presented in a two-person show at Raymond Avenue Gallery, and in a pop-up show at Groveland Gallery. |
Josh K. Winkler, Mankato | $ 9,384 | | Winkler will exhibit panoramic woodcut prints on Japanese folding screens at the Carnegie Art Center. The screens will create a space within the gallery for viewers to reflect on environmental subjects. |
Andrew P. Wykes, Northfield | $ 10,000 | | Wykes will create large-scale paintings of landscapes in urban and rural parts of southern Minnesota. |
Cameron A. Zebrun, Minneapolis | $ 9,960 | | Zebrun will create a new body of sculpture and photography inspired by the environment of the North Shore of Lake Superior for an exhibition at the Hopkins Center for the Arts. |
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