Wyoming: Native Art Fellowship

James Dewey, Northern Arapaho, demonstrating his beadwork. Photo by Josh Chrysler, courtesy Wyoming Arts Council/Wyoming Folklife Collection

For many years, the Wyoming Arts Council has awarded annual fellowships that recognize visual, literary and performing artists. That portfolio is now expanding to include the Native Art Fellowship. This program, new in 2021, is designed to raise the visibility and support the artistry of Native artists in Wyoming.

This effort was inspired in part by Abi Whiteing (Blackfeet) and Catherine Bryan (Navajo) of the First Nations Development Institute, who presented at the 2019 Wyoming Arts Summit. Whiteing and Bryan discussed ways that indigenous communities and causes experience public and private funding barriers. To design the new fellowship program to be responsive to the needs of Native artists, the Wyoming Arts Council consulted with Native artists and other organizational partners, including Hunter Old Elk (Crow & Yakama) of the Plains Indian Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, artist Robert Martinez (Northern Arapaho), Lorre Hoffman with Makerspace 307, and Sharon Dynak and Tracey Kikut with the Ucross Foundation.

Applications for the Arts Council’s Native Art Fellowship are open to enrolled members* and lineal descendants of federally recognized tribes, state-recognized tribes and Alaska Natives or Native Hawaiians residing in Wyoming. Artists practicing traditional or contemporary art forms are welcome to apply, including visual, literary, performing, folk, media and multidisciplinary artists. The award will provide $3,000 in unrestricted funds and will supply Arts Council assistance to showcase and publicize the awardee’s work. Fellowship winners retain all rights to works created under the auspices of the award. Find out more by contacting Wyoming Arts Council Folklorist and Health Specialist Josh Chrysler.

* Per U.S. Supreme Court rulings, tribal enrollment is a legal citizenship classification, not a racial classification.