The call is now open to established American Indian and Alaska Native artists to apply for a one-year NACF Mentor Artist Fellowship to mentor an emerging American Indian and Alaska Native artist apprentice. Established artists should have at least ten years of experience in the Traditional Arts or Contemporary Visual Arts fields.
Applications will be accepted until 5 p.m. Pacific Time, on Monday, November 6, 2017.
Awarded Mentors will develop lesson plans intended to increase their apprentice’s skill level, and provide an experience of intergenerational exchange of cultural knowledge within the apprentice’s traditional arts or contemporary visual arts practice. To assist in developing lesson plans, awarded mentors and their apprentices are required to attend a training session before the mentorship begins. The training date will be announced upon notification of the awards.
This is a regional fellowship focusing in the Pacific Northwest, Southwest and Upper Midwest areas of the United States. Eligible applicants must be at least a five-year resident of, and enrolled in an American Indian tribe or Alaska Native corporation located in Alaska, Arizona, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Southern California (Imperial, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties), Washington or Wisconsin. Submission of documentation of American Indian and Alaska Native heritage is part of the application process.
First year Mentor Artist Fellow Lani Hotch (Chilkat Indian Village) said of receiving her award, “I’ve tried to work with groups of weavers, and I’m excited to work one on one with somebody so they know all the steps. In the last few months we’ve lost two weavers (…). I’m feeling a real compulsion to teach somebody.” Mentor Artist FellowShirod Younker (Coquille, Coos) said in response to the mentor training, “[A] good way to build focus [on] what we are doing and think about the macro vision of the projects in conjunction with each other.”
The Mentor Artist Fellowship is a monetary award of $30,000 — $20,000 to the mentor, $5,000 for the joint art project and $5,000 for the apprentice’s expenses — gas, supplies. Applications will undergo a selection process and fellowship awardees will be announced in the Spring of 2018. The mentoring period will be from July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2019. To demonstrate the experience and success of the mentoring, a completed joint mentor/apprentice art project is required at the Fellowship’s end.
For more information and to apply click here.
To learn more about previous NACF Mentor Artist Fellows, visit our website at http://www.
The Mentor Artist Fellowship Program is generously supported by individual donors and regional funders committed to preserving and perpetuating Native arts and cultures. NACF is grateful to the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation for supporting an Oregon Mentor Fellow.